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OF  CALIFORNIA 
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ENGLISH   PROSE 


ENGLISH  PROSE 

A  SERIES  OF  RELATED  ESSAYS  FOR  THE 

DISCUSSION  AND  PRACTICE  OF 

THE  ART  OF  WRITING 


SELECTED   AND   EDITED 
BY 

FREDERICK  WILLIAM  ROE,  Ph.D. 

OF    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    WISCONSIN 
AM) 

GEORGE  ROY  ELLIOTT,  Ph.D. 

OF    BOWDOIN   COLLEGE 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND     CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &-  GOTH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
323  EAST    23RD  STREET,  CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1913 

BY 

LONGMANS,   GREEN,  AND  CO. 


First  Edition,  October,  1913 
Reprinted,  July,  19 14 


Collego 
Library 

/f/7 


PREFACE 


The  selections  in  the  present  volume,  designed  primarily 
for  the  discussion  and  practice  in  college  classes  of  the  art 
of  composition,  have  been  arranged  under  a  scheme  which 
the  editors  believe  to  be  new.  There  are  nine  related 
groups.  Each  successive  group  represents  a  different  phase 
of  life,  beginning  with  character  and  personality,  and  con- 
cluding with  art  and  literature.  The  whole  together,  as 
the  table  of  contents  will  show,  thus  presents  a  body  of 
ideas  that  includes  practically  all  the  great  departments 
of  human  thought  and  interest. 

It  is  evident  that  certain  ideals  of  teaching  composition 
underlie  the  scheme.  The  editors  believe  heartily  with 
Pater  that  "the  chief  stimulus  of  good  style  is  to  possess  a 
full,  rich,  complex  matter  to  grapple  with '"'.  Instruction  in 
writing,  it  is  to  be  feared,  too  often  neglects  this  sound 
doctrine  and  places  an  emphasis  upon  formal  matters  that 
seems  disproportionate,  especially  when  form  is  made  to 
appear  as  a  thing  apart.  Form  and  content  go  together  and 
one  must  not  suffer  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  But  a 
sustained  interest  in  the  ways  and  means  of  correct  expres- 
sion is  aroused  only  when  the  student  feels  that  he  has 
something  to  express.  Instructors  often  contend  indeed  that 
the  ideas  of  undergraduates  are  far  to  seek,  and  that  most  of 
the  time  in  the  class-room  is  therefore  best  spent  upon 
formal  exercises  and  drill.  The  editors  do  not  share  this 
view.  They  believe  that  there  is  no  class  of  people  more 
responsive  to  new  ideas  and  impressions  than  college  students, 


Ol 


100933 


vi  PREFACE 

and  none  more  eager,  when  normally  stimulated,  to  express 
themselves  in  writing.  They  have  therefore  aimed  to  present 
a  series  of  related  selections  that  would  arouse  thought 
and  provoke  oral  discussion  in  the  class-room,  as  well  as 
furnish  suitable  models  of  style.  In  most  cases  the  pieces 
are  too  long  to  be  adequately  handled  in  one  class  hour. 
A  live  topic  may  well  be  discussed  for  several  hours,  until 
its  various  sides  have  been  examined  and  students  are 
awakened  to  the  many  questions  at  issue.  The  editors 
have  aimed,  also,  to  supply  selections  so  rich  and  vital 
in  content  that  instructors  themselves  will  feel  challenged 
to  add  to  the  class  discussion  from  their  own  knowledge 
and  experience,  and  so  turn  a  stream  of  fresh  ideas  upon 
"stock  notions".  Thus  EngHsh  composition,  which  in 
many  courses  in  our  larger  institutions  is  now  almost  the 
only  non-special  study,  can  be  made  a  direct  means  of  liberal- 
ization in  the  meaning  and  art  of  life,  as  well  as  an  instru- 
ment for  correct  and  effective  writing. 

The  present  volume  therefore  differs  from  others  in  the 
same  field.  Many  recent  collections  contain  pieces  too 
short  and  unrelated  to  satisfy  the  ideals  suggested  above — 
ideals  which,  the  editors  feel  sure,  are  held  by  an  increasing 
number  of  teachers.  And  older  and  newer  collections  alike 
have  been  constructed  primarily  with  the  purpose  of  illus- 
trating the  conventional  categories, — description,  narration, 
exposition.  Teachers  of  composition  everywhere  are  becom- 
ing distrustful  of  an  arrangement  which  is  frankly  at 
variance  with  the  actual  practice  of  writing,  and  are  of  the 
opinion  that  it  is  better  to  set  the  student  to  the  task  of 
composition  without'  confining  him  too  narrowly  to  one  form 
of  discourse.  The  editors  have  deliberately  avoided,  how- 
ever, the  other  extreme,  which  is  reflected  in  one  or  two 
recent  volumes,  of  choosing  pieces  of  one  type  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  others.  In  collections  of  this  kind  variety  in 
form  and  subject-matter  is  fully  as  important  as  richness 
of  content.  Instructors  who  believe  in  the  use  of  the  types 
of  discourse  as  the  most  practicable  means  of  instruction. 


PREFACE  vii 

will  find  all  the  types  liberally  represented  in  the  present 
volume.  And  in  order  to  meet  their  requirements  even 
more  adequately,  the  editors  have  included  two  short  stories 
at  the  end,  as  examples  of  narration  with  a  plot. 

Much  attention  has  been  given  to  the  suggestions  at  the 
end  of  the  volume  with  the  aim  of  making  them  practically 
serviceable  and,  at  the  same  time,  as  free  as  possible  from 
duplication  of  class  work.  This  aim,  the  editors  came  to 
believe,  could  best  be  attained  by  providing  for  each  group 
of  selections  definite  suggestions  of  theme- subjects  to  be 
derived  by  the  student  from  supplementary  readings  closely 
related  to  that  group. 

F.  W.  R. 

G.  R.  E. 
Madison,  Wisconsin, 

May,  1913. 


CONTENTS 


I.  THE  PERSONAL  LIFE.  page 

1.  Self-Reliancc Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  i 

2.  Early  Education 

at    llcrnc  Hill John  Ruskin  17 

3.  A  Crisis  in  IMy 

Mental  History John  Stuart  Mill  28 

4.  Old  China Charles  Lamb  40 

n.  EDUCATION. 

5.  What  is  Education? Thomas  Henry  Huxley        47 

6.  Knowiedj^c  Viewed  in 

Relation  to  Learning.  .  .John  Henry  Newman  52 

7.  Literature  and  Science Matthew  Arnold  75 

8.  How  to  Read Frederic  Harrison  97 

III.  RECREATION   AND   TKA\ELS. 

g.  On  Going  a  Journey William  H.ulitt  116 

10.  Regrets  of  a  Mountaineer.  .Leslie  Stephen  128 

IV.  SOCIAL   LIFE   AND   MANNERS. 

11.  Behavior Ralph  Waldo  Emerson      154 

12.  Manners  and  Fashion Hkrisert  Spencer  172 

13.  Talk  and  Talkers Robert  Louis  Stevenson  184 

V.  PUBLIC   AFFAIRS. 

14-  The  Social  Value 

of  the  College-bred William  James  197 

15    The   Law  of 

Human  Progress Henry  George  206 

16.  The  IMorals  of  Trade Herbert  Spencer  226 

ix 


CONTENTS 


VI.  SCIENCE. 


17.  The  Physical  Basis  of  Life.  .Thomas  Henry  Huxley  240 

18.  Menial  Powers  of 

Men  and  Animals Charles  Darwin  263 

19.  The  Importance  of  Dust. .  .Alfred  Russel  Wallace  278 

VII.  NATURE. 

20.  The  Battle  of  the  Ants. . .  .Henry  David  Thoreau  292 

21.  A  Windstorm 

in  the  Forests John  Muir  296 

22.  Walden  Pond Henry  David  Thoreau  306 

23.  Extracts   from   Modern 

Painters John  Ruskin  325 

VIII.  CONDUCT  AND  INNER  LIFE. 

24.  The  Stoics William   Edward   Hart- 

pole  Lecky  335 

25.  Enthusiasm  of  Humanity.  .John  Robert  Seeley  351 

26.  Loyalty  and  Insight Josiah  Royce  365 

IX.  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

27.  Poetry  for  Poetry's  Sake.  .  .A.  C.  Bradley  389 

28.  Greek  Tragedy C  Lowes  Dickinson  4" 

29.  Shakespeare Thomas  Carlyle  423 

30.  Charles  Lamb Walter  Pater  437 


31.  T>r.     Heidegger's 

Experiment Nathaniel  Hawthorne      450 

32.  Markheim Robert  Louis  Stevenson    462 

Supplementary  Readings. 

With  some  topics  for  Discussion  and  Composition.  481 


ENGLISH  PROSE 


SELF-RELIANCE  i 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

I  READ  the  other  day  some  verses  written  by  an  eminent 
painter  which  were  original  and  not  conventional.  Always 
the  soul  hears  an  admonition  in  such  lines,  let  the  subject 
be  what  it  may.  The  sentiment  they  instil  is  of  more 
value  than  any  thought  they  may  contain.  To  believe  5 
your  own  thought,  to  believe  that  what  is  true  for  you  in 
your  private  heart  is  true  for  all  men, — that  is  genius. 
Speak  your  latent  conviction,  and  it  shall  be  the  universal 
sense;  for  always  the  inmost  becomes  the  outmost — and 
our  first  thought  is  rendered  back  to  us  by  the  trumpets  10 
of  the  Last  Judgment.  Familiar  as  the  voice  of  the  mind 
is  to  each,  the  highest  merit  we  ascribe  to  Moses,  Plato 
and  Milton  is  that  they  set  at  naught  books  and  traditions, 
and  spoke  not  what  men,  but  what  they  thought.  A  man 
should  learn  to  detect  and  watch  that  gleam  of  light  which  15 
flashes  across  his  mind  from  within,  more  than  the  luster  of 
the  firmament  of  bards  and  sages.  Yet  he  dismisses  without 
notice  his  thought,  because  it  is  his.  In  every  work  of  genius 
we  recognize  our  own  rejected  thoughts;  they  come  back 
to  us  with  a  certain  alienated  majesty.  Great  works  of  20 
art  have  no  more  affecting  lesson  for  us  than  this.  They 
teach  us  to  abide  by  our  spontaneous  impression  with  good- 
humored  inflexibility  then  most  when  the  whole  cry  of  voices 

'  From  Essays,  First  Series,  1841;    the  second  half  of  the  essay  has 
here  been  omitted. 


2  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON 

is  on  the  other  side.  Else  to-morrow  a  stranger  will  say 
with  masterly  good  sense  precisely  what  we  have  thought 
and  felt  all  the  time,  and  we  shall  be  forced  to  take  with 
shame  our  own  opinion  from  another. 
5  There  is  a  time  in  every  man's  education  when  he  arrives 
at  the  conviction  that  envy  is  ignorance;  that  imitation 
is  suicide;  that  he  must  take  himself  for  better  for  worse  as 
his  portion;  that  though  the  wide  universe  is  full  of  good, 
no  kernel  of  nourishing  corn  can  come  to  him  but  through 

lo  his  toil  bestowed  on  that  plot  of  ground  which  is  given  to  him 
to  till.  The  power  which  resides  in  him  is  new  in  nature, 
and  none  but  he  knows  what  that  is  which  he  can  do,  nor 
does  he  know  until  he  has  tried.  Not  for  nothing  one  face, 
one  character,  one  fact,  makes  much  impression  on  him, 

IS  and  another  none.  It  is  not  without  preestablished  har- 
mony, this  sculpture  in  the  memory.  The  eye  was  placed 
where  one  ray  should  fall,  that  it  might  testify  of  that 
particular  ray.  Bravely  let  him  speak  the  utmost  syllable 
of  his  confession.     We  but  half  express  ourselves,  and  are 

20  ashamed  of  that  divine  idea  which  each  of  us  represents. 
It  may  be  safely  trusted  as  proportionate  and  of  good 
issues,  so  it  be  faithfully  imparted,  but  God  will  not  have 
his  work  made  manifest  by  cowards.  It  needs  a  divine 
man  to  exhibit  anything  divine.     A  man  is  relieved  and  gay 

25  when  he  has  put  his  heart  into  his  work  and  done  his  best; 
but  what  he  has  said  or  done  otherwise  shall  give  him  no 
peace.  It  is  a  deliverance  which  does  not  deliver.  In 
the  attempt  his  genius  deserts  him;  no  muse  befriends; 
no  invention,  no  hope. 

30  Trust  thyself:  every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string. 
Accept  the  place  the  divine  providence  has  found  for  you, 
the  society  of  your  contemporaries,  the  connection  of  events. 
Great  men  have  always  done  so,  and  confided  themselves 
childlike  to  the  genius  of  their  age,  betraying  their  percep- 

35tion  that  the  Eternal  was  stirring  at  their  heart,  working 
through  their  hands,  predominating  in  all  their  being. 
And  we  are  now  men,  and  must  accept  in  the  highest  mind 


SELF-RELIANCE  3 

the  same  transcendent  destiny;  and  not  pinched  in  a 
corner,  not  cowards  fleeing  before  a  revolution,  but 
redeemers  and  benefactors,  pious  aspirants  to  be  noble  clay 
under  the  Almighty  effort  let  us  advance  on  Chaos  and 
the  Dark.  5 

What  pretty  oracles  nature  yields  us  on  this  text  in  the 
face  and  behavior  of  children,  babes,  and  even  brutes. 
That  divided  and  rebel  mind,  that  distrust  of  a  sentiment 
because  our  arithmetic  has  computed  the  strength  and  means 
opposed  to  our  purpose,  these  have  not.  Their  mind  being  lo 
whole,  their  eye  is  as  yet  unconquered,  and  when  we  look 
in  their  faces,  we  are  disconcerted.  Infancy  conforms 
to  nobody;  all  conform  to  it;  so  that  one  babe  commonly 
makes  four  or  five  out  of  the  adults  who  prattle  and  play 
to  it.  So  God  has  armed  youth  and  puberty  and  manhood  15 
no  less  with  its  own  piquancy  and  charm,  and  made  it 
enviable  and  gracious  and  its  claims  not  to  be  put  by,  if  it 
will  stand  by  itself.  Do  not  think  the  youth  has  no  force, 
because  he  cannot  speak  to  you  and  me.  Hark!  in  the  ne.xt 
room  who  spoke  so  clear  and  emphatic?  Good  Heaven!  it  20 
is  he!  it  is  that  very  lump  of  bashfulness  and  phlegm 
which  for  weeks  has  done  nothing  but  cat  when  you  were  by, 
and  now  rolls  out  these  words  like  bell-strokes.  It  seems 
he  knows  how  to  speak  to  his  contemporaries.  Bashful 
or  bold  then,  he  will  know  how  to  make  us  seniors  very  25 
unnecessary. 

The  nonchalance  of  boys  who  are  sure  of  a  dinner,  and 
would  disdain  as  much  as  a  lord  to  do  or  say  aught  to  con- 
ciliate one,  is  the  healthy  attitude  of  human  nature.  How 
is  a  boy  the  master  of  society  ! — independent,  irresponsible,  30 
looking  out  from  his  corner  on  such  people  and  facts  as  pass 
by,  he  tries  and  sentences  them  on  their  merits,  in^  the 
swift,  summary  way  of  boys,  as  good,  bad,  interesting,  silly, 
eloquent,  troublesome.  He  cumbers  himself  never  about 
consequences,  about  interests;  he  gives  an  independent,  35 
genuine  verdict.  You  must  court  him;  he  does  not  court 
you.     But  the  man  is  as  it  were  clapped  into  jail  by  his 


4  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON 

consciousness.  As  soon  as  he  has  once  acted  or  spoken  with 
eclat  he  is  a  committed  person,  watched  by  the  sympathy 
or  the  hatred  of  hundreds,  whose  affections  must  now  enter 
into  his  account.  There  is  no  Lethe  for  this.  Ah,  that  he 
5 could  pass  again  into  his  neutral,  godlike  independence! 
Who  can  thus  lose  all  pledge  and,  having  observed,  observe 
again  from  the  same  unaffected,  unbiased,  unbribable,  unaf- 
frighted  innocence,  must  always  be  formidable,  must  always 
engage   the   poet's   and   the   man's   regards.     Of   such   an 

lo  immortal  youth  the  force  would  be  felt.     He  would  utter 

opinions  on  all  passing  affairs,  which  being  seen  to  be  not 

private  but  necessary,  would  sink  like  darts  into  the  ear  of 

men  and  put  them  in  fear. 

These  are  the  voices  which  we  hear  in  solitude,  but  they 

15  grow  faint  and  inaudible  as  we  enter  into  the  world.  Society 
everywhere  is  in  conspiracy  against  the  manhood  of  every 
one  of  its  members.  Society  is  a  joint-stock  company,  in 
which  the  members  agree,  for  the  better  securing  of  his  bread 
to  each  shareholder,  to  surrender  the  liberty  and  culture 

20  of  the  eater.  The  virtue  in  most  request  is  conformity. 
Self-reliance  is  its  aversion.  It  loves  not  realities  and 
creators,  but  names  and  customs. 

Whoso  would  be  a  man,  must  be  a  nonconformist.     He 
who  would  gather  immortal  palms  must  not  be  hindered 

25  by  the  name  of  goodness,  but  must  explore  if  it  be  goodness. 
Nothing  is  at  last  sacred  but  the  integrity  of  our  own  mind. 
Absolve  you  to  yourself,  and  you  shall  have  the  suffrage  of 
the  world.  I  remember  an  answer  which  when  quite  young  I 
was  prompted  to  make  to  a  valued  adviser  who  was  wont 

30  to  importune  me  with  the  dear  old  doctrines  of  the  church. 
On  my  saying,  What  have  I  to  do  with  the  sacredncss  of 
traditions,  if  I  live  wholly  from  within?  my  friend  suggested, 
— "  But  these  impulses  may  be  from  below,  not  from  above." 
I  replied,  "  They  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  such;  but  if  I  am 

35  the  devil's  child,  I  will  live  then  from  the  devil."  No 
law  can  be  sacred  to  me  but  that  of  my  nature.  Good  and 
bad  are  l)ut  names  very  readily  transferable  to  that  or  this; 


SELF-RELIANCE  5 

the  only  right  is  what  is  after  my  constitution;  the  only 
wrong  what  is  against  it.  A  man  is  to  carry  himself  in  the 
presence  of  all  opposition  as  if  every  thing  were  titular 
and  ephemeral  but  he.  I  am  ashamed  to  think  how  easily 
we  capitulate  to  badges  and  names,  to  large  societies  and  s 
dead  institutions.  Every  decent  and  well-spoken  individual 
affects  and  sways  me  more  than  is  right.  I  ought  to  go 
upright  and  vital,  and  speak  the  rude  truth  in  all  ways.  If 
malice  and  vanity  wear  the  coat  of  philanthropy,  shall 
that  pass?  If  an  angry  bigot  assumes  this  bountiful  cause  lo 
of  Abolition,  and  comes  to  me  with  his  last  news  from  Bar- 
badoes,  why  should  I  not  say  to  him,  "  Go  love  thy  infant; 
love  thy  wood-chopper;  be  good-natured  and  modest; 
have  that  grace;  and  never  varnish  your  hard,  uncharitable 
ambition  with  this  incredible  tenderness  for  black  folk  a  15 
thousand  miles  off.  Thy  love  afar  is  spite  at  home."  Rough 
and  graceless  would  be  such  greeting,  but  truth  is  handsomer 
than  the  affectation  of  love.  Your  goodness  must  have 
some  edge  to  it, — else  it  is  none.  The  doctrine  of  hatred 
must  be  preached,  as  the  counteraction  of  the  doctrine  of  20 
love,  when  that  pules  and  whines.  I  shun  father  and  mother 
and  wife  and  brother  when  my  genius  calls  me.  I  would 
write  on  the  lintels  of  the  door-post,  Whim.  I  hope  it  is 
somewhat  better  than  whim  at  last,  but  we  cannot  spend  the 
day  in  explanation.  Expect  me  not  to  show  cause  why  1 25 
seek  or  why  I  exclude  company.  Then,  again,  do  not  tell 
me,  as  a  good  man  did  to-day,  of  my  obligation  to  put  all 
poor  men  in  good  situations.  Are  they  my  poor?  I  tell  thee, 
thou  foolish  philanthropist,  that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the 
dime,  the  cent  I  give  to  such  men  as  do  not  belong  to  me  and  30 
to  whom  I  do  not  belong.  There  is  a  class  of  persons  to 
whom  by  all  spiritual  affinity  I  am  bought  and  sold;  for 
them  I  will  go  to  prison  if  need  be;  but  your  miscellaneous 
popular  charities;  the  education  at  college  of  fools;  the 
building  of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain  end  to  which  many  35 
now  stand;  alms  to  sots,  and  the  thousandfold  Relief 
Societies; — though  I  confess  with  shame  I  sometimes  succumb 


6  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

and  give  the  dollar,  it  is  a  wicked  dollar,  which  by-and-by 
I  shall  have  the  manhood  to  withhold. 

Virtues  are,  in  the  popular  estimate,  rather  the  excep- 
tion than  the  rule.  There  is  the  man  mid  his  virtues.  Men 
5  do  what  is  called  a  good  action,  as  some  piece  of  courage  or 
charity,  much  as  they  would  pay  a  fine  in  expiation  of  daily 
non-appearance  on  parade.  Their  works  are  done  as  an 
apology  or  extenuation  of  their  living  in  the  world, — as 
invalids  and  the  insane  pay  a  high  board.     Their  virtues  are 

lo  penances.  I  do  not  wish  to  expiate,  but  to  live.  My  life 
is  not  an  apology,  but  a  life.  It  is  for  itself  and  not  for  a 
spectacle.  I  much  prefer  that  it  should  be  of  a  lower  strain, 
so  it  be  genuine  and  equal,  than  that  it  should  be  glittering 
and  unsteady.     I  wish  it  to  be  sound  and  sweet,  and  not  to 

IS  need  diet  and  bleeding.  My  Hfe  should  be  unique;  it  should 
be  an  alms,  a  battle,  a  conquest,  a  medicine.  I  ask  primary 
evidence  that  you  are  a  man,  and  refuse  this  appeal  from 
the  man  to  his  actions.  I  know  that  for  myself  it  makes 
no  difiference  whether  I  do  or  forbear  those  actions  which 

20  are  reckoned  excellent.     I  cannot  consent  to  pay  for  a  priv- 
ilege where  I  have  intrinsic  right.     Few  and  mean  as  my 
gifts  may  be,  I  actually  am,  and  do  not  need  for  my  own  assur- 
ance or  the  assurance  of  my  fellows  any  secondary  testimony. 
What  I  must  do  is  all  that  concerns  me,  not  what  the 

25  people  think.  This  rule,  equally  arduous  in  actual  and  in 
intellectual  life,  may  serve  for  the  whole  distinction  between 
greatness  and  meanness.  It  is  the  harder  because  you  will 
always  find  those  who  think  they  know  what  is  your  duty 
better  than  you  know  it.     It  is  easy  in  the  world  to  live  after 

30 the  world's  opinion;  it  is  easy  in  solitude  to  live  after  our 
own;  but  the  great  man  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd  keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  independence  of 
solitude. 

The  objection  to  conforming  to  usages  that  have  become 

35  dead  to  you  is  that  it  scatters  your  force.  It  loses  your  time 
and  blurs  the  impression  of  your  character.  If  you  main- 
tain a  dead  church,  contribute  to  a  dead  Bible  Society,  vote 


SELF-RELIANCE  7 

with  a  great  party  either  for  the  Government  or  against  it, 
spread  your  table  like  base  housekeepers, — under  all  these 
screens  I  have  difficulty  to  detect  the  precise  man  you  are. 
And  of  course  so  much  force  is  withdrawn  from  your  proper 
life.  But  do  your  thing,  and  I  shall  know  you.  Do  your  5 
work,  and  you  shall  reinforce  yourself.  A  man  must  con- 
sider what  a  blindman's-buff  is  this  game  of  conformity. 
If  I  know  your  sect  I  anticipate  your  argument.  I  hear  a 
preacher  announce  for  his  text  and  topic  the  expediency  of 
one  of  the  institutions  of  his  church.  Do  I  not  know  before- 10 
hand  that  not  possibly  can  he  say  a  new  and  spontaneous 
word?  Do  I  not  know  that  with  all  this  ostentation  of 
examining  the  grounds  of  the  institution  he  will  do  no  such 
thing?  Do  I  not  know  that  he  is  pledged  to  himself  not  to 
look  but  at  one  side,  the  permitted  side,  not  as  a  man,  but  ^5 
as  a  parish  minister?  He  is  a  retained  attorney,  and  these 
airs  of  the  bench  are  the  emptiest  affectation.  Well,  most 
men  have  bound  their  eyes  with  one  or  another  handkerchief, 
and  attached  themselves  to  some  one  of  these  communities 
of  opinion.  This  conformity  makes  them  not  false  in  a  few  20 
particulars,  authors  of  a  few  lies,  but  false  in  all  particulars. 
Their  every  truth  is  not  quite  true.  Their  two  is  not  the 
real  two,  their  four  not  the  real  four:  so  that  every  word 
they  say  chagrins  us  and  we  know  not  where  to  begin  to 
set  them  right.  Meantime  nature  is  not  slow  to  equip  us  25 
in  the  prison-uniform  of  the  party  to  which  we  adhere.  We 
come  to  wear  one  cut  of  face  and  figure,  and  acquire  by 
degrees  the  gentlest  asinine  expression.  There  is  a  mortifying 
experience  in  particular,  which  does  not  fail  to  wreak  itself 
also  in  the  general  history;  I  mean  "  the  foolish  face  of  praise,"  30 
the  forced  smile  which  we  put  on  in  com[)any  where  we  do 
not  feel  at  ease,  in  answer  to  conversation  which  does  not 
interest  us.  The  muscles,  not  spontaneously  moved  but 
moved  by  a  low  usurping  wilfulness,  grow  tight  about  the 
outline  of  the  face,  and  make  the  most  disagreeable  sensa-35 
tion;  a  sensation  of  rebuke  and  warning  which  no  brave 
young  man  will  suffer  twice. 


8  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

For  non-conformity  the  world  whips  you  with  its  dis- 
pleasure. And  therefore  a  man  must  know  how  to  estimate 
a  sour  face.  The  bystanders  look  askance  on  him  in  the 
public  street  or  in  the  friend's  parlor.  If  this  aversation 
shad  its  origin  in  contempt  and  resistance  like  his  own  he 
might  well  go  home  with  a  sad  countenance;  but  the  sour 
faces  of  the  multitude,  like  their  sweet  faces,  have  no  deep 
cause, — disguise  no  god,  but  are  put  on  and  off  as  the  wind 
blows  and  a  newspaper  directs.     Yet  is  the  discontent  of 

lothe  multitude  more  formidable  than  that  of  the  senate  and 
the  college.  It  is  easy  enough  for  a  firm  man  who  knows 
the  world  to  brook  the  rage  of  the  cultivated  classes.  Their 
rage  is  decorous  and  prudent,  for  they  are  timid,  as  being 
very  vulnerable  themselves.     But  when  to  their  feminine 

15  rage  the  indignation  of  the  people  is  added,  when  the  ignorant 
and  the  poor  are  aroused,  when  the  uninteUigent  brute 
force  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  society  is  made  to  growl 
and  mow,  it  needs  the  habit  of  magnanimity  and  religion 
to  treat  it  godlike  as  a  trifle  of  no  concernment. 

20  The  other  terror  that  scares  us  from  self-trust  is  our 
consistency;  a  reverence  for  our  past  act  or  word  because 
the  eyes  of  others  have  no  other  data  for  computing  our 
orbit  than  our  past  acts,  and  we  are  loath  to  disappoint 
them. 

25  But  why  should  you  keep  your  head  over  your  shoulder? 
Why  drag  about  this  monstrous  corpse  of  your  memory, 
lest  you  contradict  somewhat  you  have  stated  in  this  or 
that  public  place?  Suppose  you  should  contradict  yourself; 
what  then?  It  seems  to  be  a  rule  of  wisdom  never  to  rely  on 

30  your  memory  alone,  scarcely  even  in  acts  of  pure  memory, 
but  to  bring  the  past  for  judgment  into  the  thousand- 
eyed  present,  and  live  ever  in  a  new  day.  Trust  your 
emotion.  In  your  metaphysics  you  have  denied  personality 
to  the  Deity,  yet  when  the  devout  motions  of  the  soul  come, 

35  yield  to  them  heart  and  Hfe,  though  they  should  clothe 
God  with  shape  and  color.  Leave  your  theory,  as  Joseph 
his  coat  in  the  hand  of  the  harlot,  and  flee. 


SELF-RELIANCE  9 

A  foolish  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  little  minds, 
adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philosophers  and  divines. 
With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  simply  nothing  to  do. 
He  may  as  well  concern  himself  with  his  shadow  on  the  wall. 
Out  upon  your  guarded  lips!  Sew  them  up  with  packthread,  5 
do.  Else  if  you  would  be  a  man  speak  what  you  think 
to-day  in  words  as  hard  as  cannon  balls,  and  to-morrow 
speak  what  to-morrow  thinks  in  hard  words  again,  though 
it  contradict  every  thing  you  said  to-day.  Ah,  then, 
exclaim  the  aged  ladies,  you  shall  be  sure  to  be  misunder- 10 
stood!  Misunderstood!  It  is  a  right  fool's  word.  Is  it  so 
bad  then  to  be  misunderstood?  Pythagoras  was  misunder- 
stood, and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  Copernicus, 
and  Galileo,  and  Newton,  and  every  pure  and  wise  spirit 
that  ever  took  flesh.     To  be  great  is  to  be  misunderstood.  15 

I  suppose  no  man  can  violate  his  nature.  All  the  sallies 
of  his  will  are  rounded  in  by  the  law  of  his  being,  as  the 
inequalities  of  Andes  and  Himmaleh  are  insignificant  in  the 
curve  of  the  sphere.  Nor  does  it  matter  how  you  gauge 
and  try  him.  A  character  is  like  an  acrostic  or  Alexandrian  20 
stanza; — read  it  forward,  backward,  or  across,  it  still  spells 
the  same  thing.  In  this  pleasing  contrite  wood-life  which 
God  allows  me,  let  me  record  day  by  day  my  honest  thought 
without  prospect  or  retrospect,  and,  I  cannot  doubt,  it  will 
be  found  symmetrical,  though  I  mean  it  not  and  see  it  not.  25 
My  book  should  smell  of  pines  and  resound  with  the  hum  of 
insects.  The  swallow  over  my  window  should  interweave 
that  thread  or  straw  he  carries  in  his  bill  into  my  web  also. 
We  pass  for  what  we  are.  Character  teaches  above  our  wills. 
Men  imagine  that  they  communicate  their  virtue  or  vice  30 
only  by  overt  actions,  and  do  not  see  that  virtue  or  vice 
emit  a  breath  every  moment. 

Fear  never  but  you  shall  be  consistent  in  whatever  variety 
of  actions,  so  they  be  each  honest  and  natural  in  their  hour. 
For  of  one  will,  the  actions  will  be  harmonious,  however 35 
unlike  they  seem.     These  varieties  are  lost  sight  of  when 
seen  at  a  little  distance,  at  a  little  height  of  thought.     One 


10  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

tendency  unites  them  all.  The  voyage  of  tlie  best  ship  is 
a  zigzag  line  of  a  hundred  tacks.  This  is  only  microscopic 
criticism.  See  the  line  from  a  sufficient  distance,  and  it 
straightens  itself  to  the  average  tendency.  Your  genuine 
5  action  will  explain  itself  and  will  explain  your  other  genuine 
actions.  Your  conformity  explains  nothing.  Act  singh^, 
and  what  you  have  already  done  singly  will  justify  you  now. 
Greatness  always  appeals  to  the  future.  If  I  can  be  great 
enough  now  to  do  right  and  scorn  eyes,  I  must  have  done 

loso  much  right  before  as  to  defend  me  now.  Be  it  how  it 
will,  do  right  now.  Always  scorn  appearances  and  you 
always  may.  The  force  of  character  is  cumulative.  All 
the  foregone  days  of  virtue  work  their  health  into  this. 
What  makes  the  majesty  of  the  heroes  of  the  senate  and  the 

15  field,  which  so  fills  the  imagination?  The  consciousness  of  a 
train  of  great  days  and  victories  behind.  There  they  all 
stand  and  shed  an  united  light  on  the  advancing  actor. 
He  is  attended  as  by  a  visible  escort  of  angels  to  every  man's 
eye.     That   is   it   which    throws    thunder   into    Chatham's 

20 voice,  and  dignity  into  Washington's  port,  and  America 
into  Adams's  eye.  Honor  is  venerable  to  us  because  it  is 
no  ephemeris.  It  is  always  ancient  virtue.  We  worship 
it  to-day  because  it  is  not  of  to-day.  We  love  it  and  pay  it 
homage  because  it  is  not  a  trap  for  our  love  and  homage, 

25  but  is  self-dependent,  self-derived,  and  therefore  of  an  old 
immaculate  pedigree,  even  if  shown  in  a  young  person. 

I  hope  in  these  days  we  have  heard  the  last  of  conformity 
and  consistency.  Let  the  words  be  gazetted  and  ridiculous 
henceforward.     Instead  of  the  gong  for  dinner,  let  us  hear 

30  a  whistle  from  the  Spartan  fife.  Let  us  bow  and  apologize 
never  more.  A  great  man  is  coming  to  eat  at  my  house. 
I  do  not  wish  to  please  him;  I  wish  that  he  should  wish  to 
please  me.  I  will  stand  here  for  humanity,  and  though  I 
would  make  it  kind,  I  would  make  it  true.     Let  us  affront 

35  and  reprimand  the  smooth  mediocrity  and  squalid  content- 
ment of  the  times,  and  hurl  in  the  face  of  custom  and  trade 
and  office,  the  fact  which  is  the  upshot  of  all  history,  that 


SELF-RELIANCE  11 

there  is  a  great  responsible  Thinker  and  Actor  moving 
wherever  moves  a  man;  that  a  true  man  belongs  to  no 
other  time  or  place,  but  is  the  center  of  things.  Where 
he  is,  there  is  nature.  He  measures  you  and  all  men  and  all 
events.  You  are  constrained  to  accept  his  standard,  s 
Ordinarily,  every  body  in  society  reminds  us  of  somewhat 
else,  or  of  some  other  person.  Character,  reality,  reminds 
you  of  nothing  else;  it  takes  place  of  the  whole  creation. 
The  man  must  be  so  much  that  he  must  make  all  circum- 
stances indifferent — put  all  means  into  the  shade.  This  lo 
all  great  men  are  and  do.  Every  true  man  is  a  cause,  a 
country,  and  an  age;  requires  infinite  spaces  and  numbers 
and  time  fully  to  accomplish  his  thought; — and  posterity 
seem  to  follow  his  steps  as  a  procession.  A  man  Caesar  is 
born,  and  for  ages  after  we  have  a  Roman  Empire.  Christ  15 
is  born,  and  millions  of  minds  so  grow  and  cleave  to  his 
genius  that  he  is  confounded  with  virtue  and  the  possible 
of  man.  An  institution  is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  one 
man;  as,  the  Reformation,  of  Luther;  Quakerism,  of  Fox; 
Methodism,  of  Wesley;  Abolition,  of  Clarkson.  Scipio,  20 
Milton  called  *'  the  height  of  Rome;"  and  all  history  resolves 
itself  very  easily  into  the  biography  of  a  few  stout  and 
earnest  persons. 

Let  a  man  then  know  his  worth,  and  keep  things  under 
his  feet.     Let  him  not  peep  or  steal,  or  skulk  up  and  down  25 
with  the  air  of  a  charity-boy,  a  bastard,  or  an  interloper 
in  the  world  which  exists  for  him.     But  the  man  in  the  street, 
finding  no  worth  in  himself  which  corresponds  to  the  force 
which  built  a  tower  or  sculptured  a  marble  god,  feels  poor 
when  he  looks  on  these.     To  him  a  palace,  a  statue,  or  a  30 
costly  book  has  an  alien  and  forbidding  air,  much  like  a  gay 
equipage,  and  seems  to  say  like  that,  "Who  are  you,  sir?" 
Yet  they  all  are  his,  suitors  for  his  notice,  petitioners  to  his 
faculties  that  they  will  come  out  and  take  possession.     The 
picture  waits  for  my  verdict;    it  is  not  to  command  me,  35 
but  I  am  to  settle  its  claim  to  praise.     That  popular  fable 
of  the  sot  who  was  picked  up  dead  drunk  m  the  street, 


12  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON 

carried  to  the  duke's  house,  washed  and  dressed  and  laid 
in  the  duke's  bed,  and,  on  his  waking,  treated  with  all 
obsequious  ceremony  like  the  duke,  and  assured  that  he  had 
been  insane — owes  its  popularity  to  the  fact  that  it  symbolizes 
5  so  well  the  state  of  man,  who  is  in  the  world  a  sort  of  sot, 
but  now  and  then  wakes  up,  exercises  his  reason  and  finds 
himself  a  true  prince. 

Our  reading  is  mendicant  and  sycophantic.  In  history 
our  imagination  makes  fools  of  us,  plays  us  false.     Kingdom 

loand  lordship,  power  and  estate,  are  a  gaudier  vocabulary 
than  private  John  and  Edward  in  a  small  house  and  common 
day's  work:  but  the  things  of  life  are  the  same  to  both:  the 
sum  total  of  both  is  the  same.  Why  all  this  deference  to 
Alfred  and  Scanderbeg  and  Gustavus?    Suppose  they  were 

15  virtuous;  did  they  wear  out  virtue?  As  great  a  stake  depends 
on  your  private  act  to-day  as  followed  their  public  and 
renowned  steps.  When  private  men  shall  act  with  original 
views,  the  luster  will  be  transferred  from  the  actions  of  kings 
to  those  of  gentlemen. 

20  The  world  has  indeed  been  instructed  by  its  kings,  who 
have  so  magnetized  the  eyes  of  nations.  It  has  been  taught 
by  this  colossal  symbol  the  mutual  reverence  that  is  due 
from  man  to  man.  The  joyful  loyalty  with  which  men  have 
everywhere  suffered  the  king,  the  noble,  or  the  great  pro- 

25prietor  to  walk  among  them  by  a  law  of  his  own,  make  his 
own  scale  of  men  and  things  and  reverse  theirs,  pay  for 
benefits  not  with  money  but  with  honor,  and  represent  the 
Law  in  his  person,  was  the  hieroglyphic  by  which  they 
obscurely  signified  their  consciousness  of  their  own  right  and 

30  comeliness,  the  right  of  every  man. 

The  magnetism  which  all  original  action  exerts  is  explained 
when  we  inquire  the  reason  of  self-trust.  Who  is  the  Trustee? 
What  is  the  aboriginal  Self,  on  which  a  universal  reliance 
may  be  grounded?     What  is  the  nature  and  power  of  that 

35  science-bafiling  star,  without  parallax,  without  calculable 
elements,  which  shoots  a  ray  of  beauty  even  into  trivial  and 
impure  actions,  if  the  least  mark  of  independence  appear? 


SELF-RELIANCE  13 

The  inquiry  leads  us  to  that  source,  at  once  the  essence  of 
genius,  the  essence  of  virtue,  and  the  essence  of  life,  which 
we  call  Spontaneity  or  Instinct.  We  denote  this  primary 
wisdom  as  Intuition,  whilst  all  later  teachings  are  tuitions. 
In  that  deep  force,  the  last  fact  behind  which  analysis  cannot  s 
go,  all  things  find  their  common  origin.  For  the  sense  of 
being  which  in  calm  hours  rises,  we  know  not  how,  in  the 
soul,  is  not  diverse  from  things,  from  space,  from  light,  from 
time,  from  man,  but  one  with  them  and  proceedeth  obviously 
from  the  same  source  whence  their  life  and  being  also  pro-  lo 
ceedeth.  We  first  share  the  life  by  which  things  exist  and 
afterward  see  them  as  appearances  in  nature  and  forget 
that  we  have  shared  their  cause.  Here  is  the  fountain  of 
action  and  the  fountain  of  thought.  Here  are  the  lungs 
of  that  inspiration  which  giveth  man  wisdom,  of  that  inspira-  15 
tion  of  man  which  cannot  be  denied  without  impiety  and 
atheism.  We  lie  in  the  lap  of  immense  intelligence,  which 
makes  us  organs  of  its  activity  and  receivers  of  its  truth. 
When  we  discern  justice,  when  we  discern  truth,  we  do 
nothing  of  ourselves,  but  allow  a  passage  to  its  beams.  If  20 
we  ask  whence  this  comes,  if  we  seek  to  pry  into  the  soul  that 
causes — all  metaphysics,  all  philosophy  is  at  fault.  Its 
presence  or  its  absence  is  all  we  can  afhrm.  Every  man 
discerns  between  the  voluntary  acts  of  his  mind  and  his  in- 
voluntary perceptions.  And  to  his  involuntary  perceptions  25 
he  knows  a  perfect  respect  is  due.  He  may  err  in  the  expres- 
sion of  them,  but  he  knows  that  these  things  are  so,  like 
day  and  night,  not  to  be  disputed.  All  my  wilful  actions 
and  acquisitions  are  but  roving; — the  most  trivial  reverie, 
the  faintest  native  emotion,  are  domestic  and  divine.  30 
Thoughtless  people  contradict  as  readily  the  statement  of 
perceptions  as  of  opinions,  or  rather  much  more  readily; 
for  they  do  not  distinguish  between  perception  and  notion. 
They  fancy  that  I  choose  to  see  this  or  that  thing.  But 
perception  is  not  whimsical,  but  fatal.  If  I  see  a  trait,  my  35 
children  will  see  it  after  me,  and  in  course  of  time  all 
mankind, — although  it  may  chance  that  no  one  has  seen  it 


14  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON 

before  me.     For  my  perception  of  it  is  as  much  a  fact  as 
the  sun. 

The  relations  of  the  soul  to  the  divine  spirit  are  so  pure 
that  it  is  profane  to  seek  to  interpose  helps.  It  must  be 
5  that  when  God  speaketh  he  should  communicate,  not  one 
thing,  but  all  things;  should  fill  the  woild  with  his  voice; 
should  scatter  forth  light,  nature,  time,  souls,  from  the  center 
of  the  present  thought;  and  new  date  and  new  create  the 
whole.     Whenever  a  mind  is  simple  and  receives  a  divine 

10  wisdom,  then  old  things  pass  away, — means,  teachers,  texts, 
temples  fall;  it  lives  now,  and  absorbs  past  and  future  into 
the  present  hour.  All  things  are  made  sacred  by  relation 
to  it, — one  thing  as  much  as  another.  All  things  are  dissolved 
to  their  center  by  their  cause,  and  in  the  universal  miracle 

15  petty  and  particular  miracles  disappear.  This  is  and  must 
be.  If  therefore  a  man  claims  to  know  and  speak  of  God 
and  carries  you  backward  to  the  phraseology  of  some  old 
moldered  nation  in  another  country,  in  another  world, 
believe  him  not.     Is  the  acorn  better  than  the  oak  which 

20  is  its  fulness  and  completion?  Is  the  parent  better  than  the 
child  into  whom  he  has  cast  his  ripened  being?  Whence 
then  this  worship  of  the  past?  The  centuries  are  conspirators 
against  the  sanity  and  majesty  of  the  soul.  Time  and  space 
are  but  physiological  colors  which  the  eye  maketh,  but  the 

25  soul  is  light;  where  it  is,  is  day;  where  it  was,  is  night;  and 
history  is  an  impertinence  and  an  injury  if  it  be  any  thing 
more  than  a  cheerful  apologue  or  parable  of  my  being  and 
becoming. 

Man  is  timid  and  apologetic;  he  is  no  longer  upright;  he 

30  dares  not  say  "  I  think,"  "  I  am,"  but  quotes  some  saint  or 
sage.  He  is  ashamed  before  the  blade  of  grass  or  the  blow- 
ing rose.  These  roses  under  my  window  make  no  reference 
to  former  roses  or  to  better  ones;  they  are  for  what  they  are; 
they  exist  with  God  to-day.     There  is  no  time  to  them. 

35  There  is  simply  the  rose;  it  is  perfect  in  every  moment  of  its 
existence.  Before  a  leaf-bud  has  burst,  its  whole  life  acts; 
in  the  full-blown  flower  there  is  no  more;    in  the  leafless 


sp:lf-heliance  15 

root  there  is  no  less.  Its  nature  is  satisfied  and  it  satisfies 
nature  in  all  moments  alike.  There  is  no  time  to  it.  But 
man  postpones  or  remembers;  he  does  not  live  in  the  present, 
but  with  reverted  eye  laments  the  past,  or,  heedless  of  the 
riches  that  surround  him,  stands  on  tiptoe  to  foresee  the  5 
future.  He  cannot  be  happy  and  strong  until  he  too  lives 
with  nature  in  the  present,  above  time. 

This  should  be  plain  enough.     Yet  see  what  strong  intel- 
lects dare  not  yet  hear  God  himself  unless  he  speak  the 
phraseology  of  I  know  not  what  David,  or  Jeremiah,  or  10 
Paul.     We  shall  not  always  set  so  great  a  price  on  a  few 
texts,  on  a  few  lives.     We  are  like  children  who  repeat  by 
rote  the  sentences  of  grandamcs  and  tutors,  and,  as  they 
grow  older,  of  the  men  of  talents  and  character  they  chance 
to  see, — painfully  recollecting  the  exact  words  they  spoke;  15 
afterward,  when   they  come   into  the  point  of  view  which 
those  had  who  uttered  these  sayings,  they  understand  them 
and  are  willing  to  let  the  words  go;  for  at  any  time  they  can 
use  words  as  good  when  occasion  comes.     So  was  it  with  us, 
so  will  it  be,  if  we  proceed.     If  we  live  truly,  we  shall  see  20 
truly.     It  is  as  easy  for  the  strong  man  to  be  strong,  as  it  is 
for  the  weak  to  be  weak.     When  we  have  new  perception, 
we  shall  gladly  disburden  the  memory  of  its  hoarded  treas- 
ures as  old  rubbish.     When  a  man  lives  with  God,  his  voice 
shall  be  as  sweet  as  the  murmur  of  the  brook  and  the  rustle  25 
of  the  corn. 

And  now  at  last  the  highest  truth  on  this  subject  remains 
unsaid;  probably  cannot  be  said;  for  all  that  we  say  is  the 
far  off  remembering  of  the  intuition:  That  thought,  by 
what  I  can  now  nearest  approach  to  say  it,  is  this:  When 30 
good  is  near  you,  when  you  have  life  in  yourself, — it  is  not 
by  any  known  or  appointed  way;  you  shall  not  discern Ihe 
foot-prints  of  any  other;  you  shall  not  see  the  face  of  man; 
you  shall  not  hear  any  name; — the  way,  the  thought,  the 
good,  shall  be  wholly  strange  and  new.  It  shall  exclude  all  35 
other  being.  You  take  the  way  from  man,  not  to  nian.  All 
persons  that  ever  existed  are  its  fugitive  ministers.     There 


16  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

shall  be  no  fear  in  it.  Fear  and  hope  are  alike  beneath  it. 
It  asks  nothing.  There  is  somewhat  low  even  in  hope.  We 
are  then  in  vision.  There  is  nothing  that  can  be  called  grat- 
itude, nor  properly  joy.     The  soul  is  raised  over  passion. 

S  It  seeth  identity  and  eternal  causation.  It  is  a  perceiving 
that  Truth  and  Right  are.  Hence  it  becomes  a  Tranquillity 
out  of  the  knowing  that  all  things  go  well.  Vast  spaces 
of  nature;  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the  South  Sea;  vast  intervals 
of  time,  years,  centuries,  are  of  no  account.    This  which 

lo  I  think  and  feel  underlay  that  former  state  of  life  and  circum- 
stances, as  it  does  underlie  my  present  and  will  always  all 
circumstances,  and  what  is  called  life  and  what  is  called 
death. 


EARLY  EDUCATION  AT  HERNE  HILL  ^ 
John  Ruskin 

When  I  was  about  four  years  old  my  father  found  himself 
able  to  buy  the  lease  of  a  house  on  Heme  Hill,  a  rustic 
eminence  four  miles  south  of  the  "  Standard  in  Cornhill  "; 
of  which  the  leafy  seclusion  remains,  in  all  essential  points 
of  character,  unchanged  to  this  day:  certain  Gothic  splen-  5 
dours,  lately  indulged  in  by  our  wealthier  neighbours,  being 
the  only  serious  innovations;  and  these  are  so  graciously 
concealed  by  the  fine  trees  of  their  grounds,  that  the  passing 
viator  remains  unappalled  by  them;  and  I  can  still  walk 
up  and  down  the  piece  of  road  between  the  Fox  tavern  and  10 
the  Heme  Hill  station,  imagining  myself  four  years  old. 

Our  house  was  the  northernmost  of  a  group  which  stand 
accurately  on  the  top  or  dome  of  the  hill,  where  the  ground 
is  for  a  small  space  level,  as  the  snows  are,  (I  understand), 
on  the  dome  of  Mont  Blanc;  presently  falling,  however,  15 
in  what  may  be,  in  the  London  clay  formation,  considered 
a  precipitous  slope,  to  our  valley  of  Chamouni  (or  of  Dulwich) 
on  the  east;  and  with  a  softer  descent  into  Cold  Harbor 
lane  on  the  west:  on  the  south,  no  less  beautifully  declining 
to  the  dale  of  the  EfTra,  (doubtless  shortened  from  EfTrena,  20 
signifying  the  "  Unbridled  "  river;  recently,  I  regret  to  say, 
bricked  over  for  the  convenience  of  Mr.  Biffin,  chemist, 
and  others);  while  on  the  north,  prolonged  indeed  with 
slight  depression  some  half  mile  or  so,  and  receiving,  in  the 
parish  of  Lambeth,  the  chivalric  title  of  "  Champion  Hill,"  25 
it  plunges  down  at  last  to  efface  itself  in  the  plains  of  Peck- 
ham,  and  the  rural  barbarism  of  Goose  Green. 

1  From  '•  rraeleriLa,"'  1SS5,  Vol.  I,  Chapter  II. 

17 


18  JOHN  RUSKIN 

The  group,  of  which  our  house  was  the  quarter,  consisted 
of  two  precisely  similar  partner-couples  of  houses,  gardens 
and  all  to  match;  still  the  two  highest  blocks  of  buildings 
seen  from  Norwood  on  the  crest  of  the  ridge;    so  that  the 

5  house  itself,  three-storied,  with  garrets  above,  commanded, 
in  those  comparatively  smokeless  days,  a  very  notable  view 
from  its  garret  windows,  of  the  Norwood  hills  on  one  side, 
and  the  winter  sunrise  over  them;  and  of  the  valley  of  the 
Thames  on  the  other,  with  Windsor  telescopically  clear  in 

lothe  distance,  and  Harrow,  conspicuous  always  in  fine  weather 
to  open  vision  against  the  summer  sunset.  It  had  front 
and  back  garden  in  sufficient  proportion  to  its  size;  the  front, 
richly  set  with  old  evergreens,  and  well-grown  lilac  and 
laburnum;    the  back,  seventy  yards  long  by  twenty  wide, 

15  renowned  over  all  the  hill  for  its  pears  and  apples,  which 
had  been  chosen  with  extreme  care  by  our  predecessor, 
(shame  on  me  to  forget  the  name  of  a  man  to  whom  I  owe 
so  much  I) — and  possessing  also  a  strong  old  mulberry  tree, 
a  tall  white-heart  cherry  tree,  a  black  Kentish  one,  and  an 

20  almost  unbroken  hedge,  all  round,  of  alternate  gooseberry  and 
currant  bush;  decked,  in  due  season,  (for  the  ground  was 
wholly  beneficent),  with  magical  splendour  of  abundant 
fruit:  fresh  green,  soft  amber,  and  rough-bristled  crimson 
bending  the  spinous  branches;    clustered  pearl  and  pendent 

25  ruby  joyfully  discoverable  under  the  large  leaves  that  looked 
like  vine. 

The  dififerences  of  primal  importance  which  I  observed 
between  the  nature  of  this  garden,  and  that  of  Eden,  as  I  had 
imagined  it,  were,  that,  in  this  one,  all  the  fruit  was  forbidden ; 

30 and  there  were  no  companionable  beasts:  in  other  respects 
the  little  domain  answered  every  purpose  of  paradise  to  me; 
and  the  climate,  in  that  cycle  of  our  years,  allowed  me  to 
pass  most  of  my  life  in  it.  My  mother  never  gave  me  more 
to  learn  than  she  knew  I  could  easily  get  learnt,   if   I  set 

35  myself  honestly  to  work,  by  twelve  o'clock.  She  never 
allowed  anything  to  disturb  me  when  my  task  was  set;  if 
it  was  not  said  rightly  by  twelve  o'clock,  I  was  kept  in  till 


EARLY  EDUCATION  AT  IIERNE  HILL  19 

I  knew  it,  and  in  general,  even  when  Latin  Grammar  came 
to  supplement  the  Psalms,  I  was  my  own  master  for  at  least 
an  hour  before  half-past  one  dinner,  and  for  the  rest  of  the 
afternoon. 

My  mother,  herself  finding  her  chief  personal  pleasure  in   5 
her  flowers,  was  often  planting  or  pruning  beside  me,  at 
least  if  I  chose  to  stay  beside  her.     I  never  thought  of  doing 
anything  behind  her  back  which  I  would  not  have  done  before 
her  face;  and  her  presence  was  therefore  no  restraint  to  me; 
but,  also,  no  particular  pleasure,  for,  from  having  always  10 
been  left  so  much  alone,   I  had  generally  my  own   little 
affairs  to  see  after;    and,  on  the  whole,  by  the  time  I  was 
seven    years    old,    was    already    getting    too    independent, 
mentally,  even  of  my  father  and  mother;  and,  having  nobody 
else  to  be  dependent  upon,  began  to  lead  a  very  small,  15 
perky,    contented,    conceited,    Cock-Robinson-Crusoe    sort 
of  life,  in  the  central  point  which  it  aj)peared  to  me,  (as  it 
must    naturally    appear    to    geometrical    animals),    that    I 
occupied  in  the  universe. 

This  was  partly  the  fault  of  my  father's  modesty;    and  20 
partly  of  his  pride.     He  had  so  much  more  confidence  in  my 
mother's  judgment  as  to  such  matters  than  in  his  own,  that 
he  never  ventured  even  to  help,  much  less  to  cross  her,  in  the 
conduct  of  my  education;    on  the  other  hand,  in  the  fixed 
purpose  of  making  an  ecclesiastical  gentleman  of  me,  with  the  25 
superfinest  of  manners,  and  access  to  the  highest  circles  of 
fleshly  and  spiritual  society,  the  visits  to  Croydon,  where  I 
entirely  loved  my  aunt,  and  young  baker-cousins,  became 
rarer  and  more  rare:  the  society  of  our  neighbours  on  the  hill 
could  not  be  had  without  breaking  up  our  regular  and  sweetly  .q 
selfish  manner  of  living;    and  on  the  whole,  I  had  nothing 
animate  to  care  for,  in  a  childish  way,  but  myself,  some 
nests  of  ants,  which  the  gardener  would  never  leave  undis- 
turbed for  me,  and  a  social^le  bird  or  two;    though  I  never 
had  the  sense  or  perseverance  to  make  one  really  tame.  ,- 
But  that  was  partly  because,  if  ever  I  managed  to  bring 
one  to  be  the  least  trustful  of  me,  the  cats  got  it. 


20  JOHN  RUSKIN 

Under  these  circumstances,  what  powers  of  imagination 
I  possessed,  either  fastened  themselves  on  inanimate  things, — 
the  sky,  the  leaves,  and  pebbles,  observable  within  the  walls 
of  Eden, — or  caught  at  any  opportunity  of  flight  into 
5  regions  of  romance,  compatible  with  the  objective  realities 
of  existence  in  the  nineteenth  century,  within  a  mile  and  a 
quarter  of  Camberwell  Green. 

Herein    my    father,    happily,    though    with    no    definite 
intention  other  than  of  pleasing  me,  when  he  found  he  could 

lodo  so  without  infringing  any  of  my  mother's  rules,  became 
my  guide.  I  was  particularly  fond  of  watching  him  shave; 
and  was  always  allowed  to  come  into  his  room  in  the  morning 
(under  the  one  in  which  I  am  now  writing),  to  be  the  motion- 
less   witness    of    that    operation.     Over    his    dressing-table 

15  hung  one  of  his  own  water-colour  drawings,  made  under  the 
teaching  of  the  elder  Nasmyth;  I  believe,  at  the  High 
School  of  Edinburgh.  It  was  done  in  the  early  manner  of 
tinting,  which,  just  about  the  time  when  my  father  was  at 
the  High  School,  Dr.  Munro  was  teaching  Turner;   namely, 

20  in  gray  under-tints  of  Prussian  blue  and  British  ink,  washed 
with  warm  colour  afterwards  on  the  lights.  It  represented 
Conway  Castle,  with  its  Frith,  and,  in  the  foreground,  a 
cottage,  a  fisherman,  and  a  boat  at  the  water's  edge. 

When  my  father  had  finished  shaving,  he  always  told  me  a 

25  story  about  this  picture.  The  custom  began  without  any 
initial  purpose  of  his,  in  consequence  of  my  troublesome 
curiosity  whether  the  fisherman  lived  in  the  cottage,  and  where 
he  was  going  to  in  the  boat.  It  being  settled,  for  peace' 
sake,  that  he  did  live  in  the  cottage,  and  was  going  in  the 

30  boat  to  fish  near  the  castle,  the  plot  of  the  drama  afterwards 
gradually  thickened;  and  became,  I  believe,  involved  with 
that  of  the  tragedy  of  Douglas,  and  of  the  Castle  Specter, 
in  both  of  which  pieces  my  father  had  performed  in  private 
theatricals,    before    my    mother,    and    a    select    Edinburgh 

35  audience,  when  he  was  a  boy  of  sixteen,  and  she,  at  grave 
twenty,  a  model  housekeeper,  and  very  scornful  and 
religiously   suspicious   of   theatricals.     But   she   was   never 


EARLY  EDUCATION  AT  HERNE  HILL     21 

weary  of  telling  me,  in  later  years,  how  beautiful  my  father 
looked  in  his  Highland  dress,  with  the  high  black  feathers. 

In    the   afternoons,    when    my   father   returned    (always 
punctually)  from  his  business,  he  dined,  at  half-past  four, 
in  the  front  parlour,  my  mother  sitting  beside  him  to  hear  the  5 
events  of  the  day,  and  give  counsel  and  encouragement  with 
respect  to  the  same;  — chiefly  the  last,  for  my  father  was  apt 
to  be  vexed  if  orders  for  sherry  fell  the  least  short  of  their 
due  standard,  even  for  a  day  or  two.     I  was  never  present 
at  this  time,  however,  and  only  avouch  what  I  relate  by  10 
hearsay  and   probable   conjecture;    for  between   four  and 
six  it  would  have  been  a  grave  misdemeanour  in  me  if  I  so 
much  as  approached  the  parlour  door.    After  that,  in  summer 
time,  we  were  all  in  the  garden  as  long  as  the  day  lasted; 
tea  under  the  white-heart  cherry  tree;    or  in  winter  and  15 
rough    weather,    at    six    o'clock    in    the    drawing-room, — I 
having  my  cup  of  milk,  and  slice  of  bread-and-butter,  in  a 
little  recess,  with  a  table  in  front  of  it,  wholly  sacred  to  me; 
and  in  which  I  remained  in  the  evenings  as  an  Idol  in  a  niche, 
while  my  mother  knitted,  and  my  father  read  to  her, — and  20 
to  me,  so  far  as  I  chose  to  listen. 

The  series  of  the  Waverley  novels,  then  drawing  towards 
its  close,  was  still  the  chief  source  of  delight  in  all  house- 
holds caring  for  literature;  and  I  can  no  more  recollect  the 
time  when  I  did  not  know  them  than  when  I  did  not  know  the  25 
Bible;  but  I  have  still  a  vivid  remembrance  of  my  father's 
intense  expression  of  sorrow  mixed  with  scorn,  as  he  threw 
down  Count  Robert  of  Paris,  after  reading  three  or  four 
pages;  and  knew  that  the  life  of  Scott  was  ended:  the 
scorn  being  a  very  complex  and  bitter  feeling  in  him, —  30 
partly,  indeed,  of  the  book  itself,  but  chiefly  of  the  wretches 
who  were  tormenting  and  selling  the  wrecked  intellect,  and 
not  a  little,  deep  down,  of  the  subtle  dishonesty  which  had 
essentially  caused  the  ruin.  My  father  never  could  forgive 
Scott  his  concealment  of  the  Ballantyne  partnership.  35 

Such  being  the  salutary  ])leasures  of  Heme  Hill,  I  have 
next  with  deeper  gratitude  to  chronicle  what  I  owe  to  my 


22  JOHN  RUSKIN 

mother  for  the  resolutely  consistent  lessons  which  so  exercised 
me  in  the  Scriptures  as  to  make  every  word  of  them  familiar 
to  my  ear  in  habitual  music, — yet  in  that  familiarity  rever- 
enced, as  transcending  all  thought,  and  ordaining  all  con- 

5  duct. 

This  she  effected,  not  by  her  own  sayings  or  personal 
authority;  but  simply  by  compelling  me  to  read  the  book 
thoroughly,  for  myself.  As  soon  as  I  was  able  to  read  with 
fluency,  she  began  a  course  of  Bible  work  with  me,  which 

lo  never  ceased  till  I  went  to  Oxford.  She  read  alternate 
verses  with  me,  watching,  at  first,  every  intonation  of  my 
voice,  and  correcting  the  false  ones,  till  she  made  me  under- 
stand the  verse,  if  within  my  reach,  rightly,  and  energetic- 
ally.    It  might  be  beyond  me  altogether;    that  she  did  not 

15  care  about;  but  she  made  sure  that  as  soon  as  I  got  hold  of 
it  at  all,  I  should  get  hold  of  it  by  the  right  end. 

In  this  way  she  began  with  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  and 
went  straight  through,  to  the  last  verse  of  the  Apocalypse; 
hard  names,  numbers,  Levitical  law,  and  all;    and  began 

20  again  at  Genesis  the  next  day.  If  a  name  was  hard,  the 
better  the  exercise  in  pronunciation, — if  the  chapter  was 
tiresome,  the  better  lesson  in  patience, — if  loathsome,  the 
better  lesson  in  faith  that  there  was  some  use  in  its  being 
so  outspoken.     After  our  chapters,  (from  two  to  three  a  day, 

25  according  to  their  length,  the  first  thing  after  breakfast, 
and  no  interruption  from  servants  allowed, — none  from 
visitors,  who  either  joined  in  the  reading  or  had  to  stay 
upstairs, — and  none  from  any  visitings  or  excursions,  except 
real  travelling),  I  had  to  learn  a  few  verses  by  heart,  or 

30  repeat,  to  make  sure  I  had  not  lost,  something  of  what 
was  already  known;  and,  with  the  chapters  thus  gradually 
possessed  from  the  first  word  to  the  last,  I  had  to  learn  the 
whole  body  of  the  fine  old  Scottish  paraphrases,  which 
are  good,   melodious,   and   forceful   verse;    and   to   which, 

35  together  with  the  Bible  itself,  I  owe  the  first  cultivation  of 
my  ear  in  sound. 

It  is  strange  that  of  all  the  pieces  of  the  Bible  which  my 


EARLY  EDUCATION  AT  HERNE  HILL  23 

mother  thus  taught  me,  that  which  cost  me  most  to  learn, 
and  which  was,  to  my  child's  mind,  chiefly  repulsive — the 
119th  Psalm — has  now  become  of  all  the  most  precious  to 
me,  in  its  overflowing  and  glorious  passion  of  love  for  the 
Law  of  God,  in  opposition  to  the  abuse  of  it  by  modern  5 
preachers  of  what  they  imagine  to  be  His  gospel. 

But  it  is  only  by  deliberate  effort  that  I  recall  the  long 
morning  hours  of  toil,  as  regular  as  sunrise, — toil  on  both 
sides  equal, — by  which,  year  after  year,  my  mother  forced 
me  to  learn  these  paraphrases,  and  chapters,  (the  eighth  of  10 
I  St  Kings  being  one — try  it,  good  reader,  in  a  leisure  hour!) 
allowing  not  so  much  as  a  syllable  to  be  missed  or  misplaced; 
while  every  sentence  was  required  to  be  said  over  and  over 
again  till  she  was  satisfied  with  the  accent  of  it.  I  recollect 
a  struggle  between  us  of  about  three  weeks,  concerning  the  15 
accent  of  the  "  of  "  in  the  lines 

"  Shall  any  following  spring  revive 
The  ashes  of  the  urn?  "  — 

I  insisting,  partly  in  childish  obstinacy,  and  partly  in  true 
instinct  for  rhythm,  (being  wholly  careless  on  the  subject  20 
both  of  urns  and  their  contents) ,  on  reciting  it  with  an  accented 
of.     It  was  not,  I  say,  till  after  three  weeks'  labor,  that  my 
mother  got  the  accent  lightened  on  the  "  of  "  and  laid  on  the 
"  ashes,"  to  her  mind.     But  had  it  taken  three  years  she 
would  have  done  it,  having  once  undertaken  to  do  it.     And,  25 
assuredly,  had  she  not  done  it, — well,  there's  no  knowing 
what  would  have  happened;   but  I'm  very  thankful  she  did. 
I  have  just  opened  my  oldest  (in  use)  Bible, — a  small, 
closely,  and  very  neatly  printed  volume  it  is,  printed  in 
Edinburgh  by  Sir  D.  Hunter  Blair  and  J.  Bruce,  Printers  30 
to  the  King's  Most  Excellent  Majesty,  in  1816.     Yellow, 
now,  with  age,  and  flexible,  but  not  unclean,  with  much  use, 
except  that  the  lower  corners  of  the  pages  at  8th  of  ist 
Kings,  and  3 2d  Deuteronomy,  are  worn  somewhat  thin  and 
dark,  the  learning  of  these  two  chapters  having  cost  me  35 
much  pains.     My  mother's  list  of  the  cha])ters  with  which. 


24  JOHN  KUSKIN 

thus  learned,  she  established  my  soul  in  life,  has  just  fallen 
out  of  it.  I  will  take  what  indulgence  the  incurious  reader 
can  give  me,  for  printing  the  list  thus  accidentally  occurrent : 

Exodus,  chapters  15th  and  20th. 

S  2  Samuel,  "  ist,  from  17th  verse  to  end. 

I  Kings,  "  8th. 

Psalms,  "  23d,  32d,  90th,  gist,  103d,  112th,  119th,  139th. 

Proverbs,  "  2d,  3d,  8th,  12th. 

Isaiah,  "  s8th. 

10  Matthew,  "  5th,  6th,  7th. 

Acts,  "  26th. 

I  Corinthians,  "  13th,  15th. 

James,  "  4th. 

Revelation,  "  sth,  6th. 

IS  And,  truly,  though  I  have  picked  up  the  elements  of  a 
little  further  knowledge — in  mathematics,  meteorology, 
and  the  like,  in  after  life, — and  owe  not  a  little  to  the  teach- 
ing of  many  people,  this  maternal  installation  of  my  mind  in 
that  property  of  chapters,  I  count  very  confidently  the  most 

20  precious,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  one  essential  part  of  all  my 
education. 

And  it  is  perhaps  already  time  to  mark  what  advantage 
and  mischief,  by  the  chances  of  life  up  to  seven  years  old, 
had  been  irrevocably  determined  for  me. 

25  I  will  first  count  my  blessings  (as  a  not  unwise  friend  once 
recommended  me  to  do,  continually;  whereas  I  have  a  bad 
trick  of  always  numbering  the  thorns  in  my  fingers  and  not 
the  bones  in  them). 

And  for  best  and  truest  beginning  of  all  blessings,  I  had 

30  been  taught  the  perfect  meaning  of  Peace,  in  thought,  act, 
and  word. 

I  never  had  heard  my  father's  or  mother's  voice  once 
raised  in  any  question  with  each  other;  nor  seen  an  angry, 
or  even  slightly  hurt  or  offended,  glance  in  the  eyes  of  either. 

35 1  had  never  heard  a  servant  scolded;  nor  even  suddenly, 
passionately,  or  in  any  severe  manner,  blamed.  I  had  never 
seen  a  moment's  trouble  or  disorder  in  any  household  matter; 


EARLY  EDUCATION   AT  HERNE  HILL  25 

nor  anything  whatever  either  done  in  a  hurry,  or  undone 
in  due  time.  I  had  no  conception  of  such  a  feeling  as 
anxiety;  my  father's  occasional  vexation  in  the  afternoons, 
when  he  had  only  got  an  order  for  twelve  butts  after  expect- 
ing one  for  fifteen,  as  I  have  just  stated,  was  never  man-  5 
ifested  to  mc;  and  itself  related  only  to  the  question  whether 
his  name  would  be  a  step  higher  or  lower  in  the  year's  list 
of  sherry  exporters;  for  he  never  spent  more  than  half  his 
income,  and  therefore  found  himself  little  incommoded  by 
occasional  variations  in  the  total  of  it.  I  had  never  done  10 
any  wrong  that  I  knew  of — beyond  occasionally  delaying 
the  commitment  to  heart  of  some  improving  sentence,  that 
I  might  watch  a  wasp  on  the  window  pane,  or  a  bird  in  the 
cherry  tree;  and  I  had  never  seen  any  grief. 

Next  to  this  quite  [)riccless  gift  of  Peace,  I  had  received  15 
the  perfect  understanding  of  the  natures  of  Obedience  and 
Faith.  I  obeyed  word,  or  lifted  finger,  of  father  or  mother, 
simply  as  a  ship  her  helm ;  not  only  without  idea  of  resistance, 
but  receiving  the  direction  as  a  part  of  my  own  life  and 
force,  a  helpful  law,  as  necessary  to  me  in  every  moral  action  20 
as  the  law  of  gravity  in  leaping.  And  my  practice  in  Faith 
was  soon  complete:  nothing  ever  threatened  me  that  was 
not  inflicted,  and  nothing  ever  told  me  that  was  not  true. 

Peace,  obedience,  faith;  these  three  for  chief  good;  next 
to  these,  the  habit  of  fixed  attention  with  both  eyes  and  mind  25 
— on  which  I  will  not  further  enlarge  at  this  moment,  this 
being  the  main  practical  faculty  of  my  life,  causing  Mazzini 
to  say  of  me,  in  conversation  authentically  reported,  a  year 
or  two  before  his  death,  that  I  had  "  the  most  analytic  mind 
in  Europe."  An  opinion  in  which,  so  far  as  I  am  acquainted  30 
with  Europe,  I  am  myself  entirely  disposed  to  concur. 

Lastly,  an  extreme  perfection  in  i)alate  and  all  other  bodily 
senses,  given  by  the  utter  prohibition  of  cake,  wine,  comfits, 
or,  except  in  carefulest  restriction,  fruit;  and  by  line  prepara- 
tion of  what  food  was  given  me.  Such  I  esteem  the  main  35 
blessings  of  my  childhood ;^next,  let  me  count  the  equally 
dominant  calamities. 


26  JOHN  RUSKIN 

First,  that  I  had  nothing  to  love. 

My  parents  were — in  a  sort — visible  powers  of  nature  to 
me,  no  more  loved  than  the  sun  and  the  moon:  only  I  should 
have  been  annoyed  and  puzzled  if  either  of  them  had  gone 

5 out;  (how  much,  now,  when  both  are  darkened!) — still 
less  did  I  love  God;  not  that  I  had  any  quarrel  with  Him, 
or  fear  of  Him;  but  simply  found  what  people  told  me  was 
His  service,  disagreeable;  and  what  people  told  me  was  His 
book,  not  entertaining.     I  had  no  companions  to  quarrel 

lowith,  neither;  nobody  to  assist,  and  nobody  to  thank. 
Not  a  servant  was  ever  allowed  to  do  anything  for  me,  but 
what  it  was  their  duty  to  do;  and  why  should  I  have  been 
grateful  to  the  cook  for  cooking,  or  the  gardener  for  garden- 
ing,— when  the  one  dared  not  give  me  a  baked  potato  with- 

15  out  asking  leave,  and  the  other  would  not  let  my  ants'  nests 
alone,  because  they  made  the  walks  untidy?  The  evil  con- 
sequence of  all  this  was  not,  however,  what  might  perhaps 
have  been  expected,  that  I  grew  up  selfish  or  unaffectionate ; 
but  that,  when  affection  did  come,  it  came  with  violence 

20  utterly  rampant  and  unmanageable,  at  least  by  me,  who 
never  before  had  anything  to  manage. 

For  (second  of  chief  calamities)  I  had  nothing  to  endure. 
Danger  or  pain  of  any  kind  I  knew  not:  my  strength  was 
never  exercised,  my  patience  never  tried,  and  my  courage 

25  never  fortified.  Not  that  I  was  ever  afraid  of  anything, — 
either  ghosts,  thunder,  or  beasts;  and  one  of  the  nearest 
approaches  to  insubordination  which  I  was  ever  tempted 
into  as  a  child,  was  in  passionate  effort  to  get  leave  to  play 
with  the  lion's  cubs  in  Womb  well's  menagerie. 

30  Thirdly,  I  was  taught  no  precision  nor  etiquette  of  man- 
ners; it  was  enough  if,  in  the  little  society  we  saw,  I  remained 
unobtrusive,  and  replied  to  a  question  without  shyness: 
but  the  shyness  came  later,  and  increased  as  I  grew  conscious 
of  the  rudeness  arising  from  the  want  of  social  discipline, 

35  and  found  it  impossible  to  acquire,  in  advanced  life,  dexterity 
in  any  bodily  exercise,  skill  in  any  pleasing  accomplishment, 
or  ease  and  tact  in  ordinary  behaviour. 


EARLY   EDUCATION   AT  HERNE   HILL  27 

Lastly,  and  chief  of  evils.  My  judgment  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  powers  of  independent  action,  were  left  entirely 
undeveloped;  because  the  bridle  and  blinkers  were  never 
taken  ofif  me.  Children  should  have  their  times  of  being  off 
duty,  like  soldiers;  and  when  once  the  obedience,  if  required,  s 
is  certain,  the  little  creature  should  be  very  early  put  for 
periods  of  practice  in  complete  command  of  itself;  set  on 
the  barebacked  horse  of  its  own  will,  and  left  to  break  it  by 
its  own  strength.  But  the  ceaseless  authority  exercised  over 
my  youth  left  me,  when  cast  out  at  last  into  the  world,  lo 
unable  for  some  time  to  do  more  than  drift  with  its  vortices. 

My  present  verdict,  therefore,  on  the  general  tenor  of 
my  education  at  that  time,  must  be,  that  it  was  at  once  too 
formal  and  too  luxurious;  leaving  my  character,  at  the  most 
important  moment  for  its  construction,  cramped  indeed,  15 
but  not  disciplined;  and  only  by  protection  innocent, 
instead  of  by  practice  virtuous. 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  ^ 

John  Stuart  Mill 

From  the  winter  of  1821,  when  I  first  read  Bentham,  and 
especially  from  the  commencement  of  the  Westminster 
Review,  I  had  what  might  truly  be  called  an  object  in  life; 
to  be  a  reformer  of  the  world.  My  conception  of  my  own 
5  happiness  was  entirely  identified  with  this  object.  The 
personal  sympathies  I  wished  for  were  those  of  fellow 
labourers  in  this  enterprise.  I  endeavoured  to  pick  up  as 
many  flowers  as  I  could  by  the  way;  but  as  a  serious  and 
permanent  personal   satisfaction   to  rest  upon,   my  whole 

10 reliance  was  placed  on  this;  and  I  was  accustomed  to 
fehcitate  myself  on  the  certainty  of  a  happy  Hfe  which  I 
enjoyed,  through  placing  my  happiness  in  something  durable 
and  distant,  in  which  some  progress  might  be  always  making, 
while  it  could  never  be  exhausted  by  complete  attainment. 

15  This  did  very  well  for  several  years,  during  which  the  general 
improvement  going  on  in  the  world  and  the  idea  of  myself 
as  engaged  with  others  in  struggling  to  promote  it,  seemed 
enough  to  fill  up  an  interesting  and  animated  existence. 
But  the  time  came  when  I  awakened  from  this  as  from  a 

20  dream.  It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1826.  I  was  in  a  dull 
state  of  nerves,  such  as  everybody  is  occasionally  liable  to; 
unsusceptible  to  enjoyment  or  pleasurable  excitement; 
one  of  those  moods  when  what  is  pleasure  at  other  times, 
becomes  insipid  or  indifferent;    the  state,  I  should  think, 

25  in  which  converts  to  Methodism  usually  are,  when  smitten 
by  their  first  "  conviction  of  sin."  In  this  frame  of  mind  it 
occurred   to   me   to   put   the   question   directly   to   myself: 

1  From  Chapter  V  of  the  .Vutobiography,  1874. 

28 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  29 

"  Suppose  that  all  your  objects  in  life  were  realised;  that  all 
the  changes  in  institutions  and  opinions  which  you  are 
looking  forward  to,  could  be  completely  effected  at  this 
very  instant :  would  this  be  a  great  joy  and  happiness  to  you?" 
And  an  irrepressible  self-consciousness  distinctly  answered,  s 
"No!"  At  this  my  heart  sank  within  me:  the  whole  founda- 
tion on  which  my  Hfe  was  constructed  fell  down.  All  my 
happiness  was  to  have  been  found  in  the  continual  pursuit 
of  this  end.  The  end  had  ceased  to  charm,  and  how  could 
there  ever  again  be  any  interest  in  the  means?  I  seemed  to  lo 
have  nothing  left  to  live  for. 

At  first  I  hoped  that  the  cloud  would  pass  away  of  itself; 
but  it  did  not.  A  night's  sleep,  the  sovereign  remedy  for 
the  smaller  vexations  of  life,  had  no  effect  on  it.  I  awoke 
to  a  renewed  consciousness  of  the  woful  fact.  I  carried  it  15 
with  me  into  all  companies,  into  all  occupations.  Hardly 
anything  had  power  to  cause  me  even  a  few  minutes'  oblivion 
of  it.  For  some  months  the  cloud  seemed  to  grow  thicker 
and  thicker.  The  lines  in  Coleridge's  "  Dejection  " — I  was 
not  then  acquainted  with  them — exactly  describe  my  case:  20 

"  A  grief  without  a  pang,  void,  dark  and  drear, 
A  drowsy,  stifled,  unimpassioned  grief, 
Which  finds  no  natural  outlet  or  relief 
In  word,  or  sigh,  or  tear." 

In  vain  I  sought  relief  from  my  favourite  books;    those  25 
memorials  of  past  nobleness  and  greatness  from  which  I  had 
always  hitherto  drawn  strength  and  animation.     I  read  them 
now  without  feeling,  or  with  the  accustomed  feeling  minus 
all  its  charm;    and  I  became  persuaded,  that  my  love  of 
mankind,   and  of  excellence  for  its  own  sake,   had  worn  30 
itself  out.     I  sought  no  comfort  by  speaking  to  others^  of 
what  I  felt.     If  I  had  loved  any  one  sufficiently  to  make 
confiding  my  griefs  a  necessity,  I  should  not  have  been  in 
the  condition  I  vvas.     I  felt,  too,  that  mine  was  not  an  inter- 
esting,   or   in    any    way    respectable    distress.     There    was  35 
nothing  in  it  to  attract  sympathy.     Advice,  if  I  had  known 


30  JOHN   STUART  MILL 

where  to  seek  it,  would  have  been  most  precious.  The 
words  of  Macbeth  to  the  physician  often  occurred  to  my 
thoughts.  But  there  was  no  one  on  whom  I  could  build 
the  faintest  hope  of  such  assistance.  My  father,  to  whom 
sit  would  have  been  natural  to  me  to  have  recourse  in  any 
practical  difficulties,  was  the  last  person  to  whom,  in  such 
a  case  as  this,  I  looked  for  help.  Everything  convinced 
me  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  any  such  mental  state  as 
I  was  suffering  from,  and  that  even  if  he  could  be  made 

loto  understand  it,  he  was  not  the  physician  who  could  heal 
it.  My  education,  which  was  wholly  his  work,  had  been 
conducted  without  any  regard  to  the  possibility  of  its  end- 
ing in  this  result;  and  I  saw  no  use  in  giving  him  the  pain 
of  thinking  that  his  plans  had  failed,  when  the  failure  was 

IS  probably  irremediable,  and,  at  all  events,  beyond  the  power 
of  his  remedies.  Of  other  friends,  I  had  at  that  time  none 
to  whom  I  had  any  hope  of  making  my  condition  intelligible. 
It  was,  however,  abundantly  intelligible  to  myself;  and  the 
more  I  dwelt  upon  it,  the  more  hopeless  it  appeared. 

20  My  course  of  study  had  led  me  to  believe,  that  all  mental 
and  moral  feelings  and  qualities,  whether  of  a  good  or  of  a 
bad  kind,  were  the  results  of  association;  that  we  love  one 
thing,  and  hate  another,  take  pleasure  in  one  sort  of  action 
or  contemplation,  and  pain  in  another  sort,  through  the 

25  clinging  of  pleasurable  or  painful  ideas  to  those  things, 
from  the  effect  of  education  or  of  experience.  As  a  corollary 
from  this,  I  had  always  heard  it  maintained  by  my  father, 
and  was  myself  convinced,  that  the  object  of  education 
should  be  to  form  the  strongest  possible  associations  of  the 

30  salutary  class;  associations  of  pleasure  with  all  things  benefi- 
cial to  the  great  whole,  and  of  pain  with  all  things  hurtful 
to  it.  This  doctrine  appeared  inexpugnable;  but  it  now 
seemed  to  me,  on  retrospect,  that  my  teachers  had  occupied 
themselves   but   superficially   with    the   means   of   forming 

35  and  keeping  up  these  salutary  associations.  They  seemed 
to  have  trusted  altogether  to  the  old  familiar  instruments, 
praise  and  blame,  reward  and  punishment.     Now,  I  did  not 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  31 

doubt  that  by  these  means,  begun  early,  and  applied  unre- 
mittingly, intense  associations  of  pain  and  pleasure,  espe- 
cially of  pain,  might  be  created,  and  might  produce  desires 
and  aversions  capable  of  lasting  undiminished  to  the  end  of 
life.  But  there  must  always  be  something  artificial  and  5 
casual  in  associations  thus  produced.  The  pains  and  pleas- 
ures thus  forcibly  associated  with  things,  are  not  connected 
with  them  by  any  natural  tie;  and  it  is  therefore,  I  thought, 
essential  to  the  durability  of  these  associations,  that  they 
should  have  become  so  intense  and  inveterate  as  to  be  10 
practically  indissoluble,  before  the  habitual  exercise  of  the 
power  of  analysis  had  commenced.  For  I  now  saw,  or 
thought  I  saw,  what  I  had  always  before  received  with 
incredulity — that  the  habit  of  analysis  has  a  tendency  to 
wear  away  the  feelings:  as  indeed  it  has,  when  no  other  15 
mental  habit  is  cultivated,  and  the  analysing  spirit  remains 
without  its  natural  complements  and  correctives.  The  very 
excellence  of  analysis  (I  argued)  is  that  it  tends  to  weaken 
and  undermine  whatever  is  the  result  of  prejudice;  that  it 
enables  us  mentally  to  separate  ideas  which  have  only  casually  20 
clung  together:  and  no  associations  whatever  could  ultimately 
resist  this  dissolving  force,  were  it  not  that  we  owe  to  analysis 
our  clearest  knowledge  of  the  permanent  sequences  in  nature; 
the  real  connections  between  Things,  not  dependent  on  our 
will  and  feelings;  natural  laws,  by  virtue  of  which,  in  many  25 
cases,  one  thing  is  inseparable  from  another  in  fact;  which 
laws,  in  proportion  as  they  are  clearly  perceived  and  imagin- 
atively realised,  cause  our  ideas  of  things  which  are  always 
joined  together  in  Nature,  to  cohere  more  and  more  closely 
in  our  thoughts.  Analytic  habits  may  thus  even  strengthen  30 
the  associations  between  causes  and  effects,  means  and  ends, 
but  tend  altogether  to  weaken  those  which  are,  to  speak 
familiarly,  a  mere  matter  of  feeling.  They  are  therefore 
(I  thought)  favourable  to  prudence  and  clear-sightedness, 
but  a  perpetual  worm  at  the  root  both  of  the  passions  and^- 
of  the  virtues;  and,  above  all,  fearfully  undermine  all 
desires,  and  all  pleasures,  which  are  the  effects  of  associa- 


32  JOHN  STUART  MILL 

tion,  that  is,  according  to  the  theory  I  held,  all  except  the 
purely  physical  and  organic;  of  the  entire  insufficiency  of 
which  to  make  life  desirable,  no  one  had  a  stronger  con- 
viction than  I  had.  These  were  the  laws  of  human  nature, 
sby  which,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  I  had  been  brought  to  my 
present  state.  All  those  to  whom  I  looked  up,  were  of 
opinion  that  the  pleasure  of  sympathy  with  human  beings, 
and  the  feelings  which  made  the  good  of  others,  and  espe- 
cially of  mankind  on  a  large  scale,  the  object  of  existence, 

lowere  the  greatest  and  surest  sources  of  happiness.  Of  the 
truth  of  this  I  was  convinced,  but  to  know  that  a  feeling 
would  make  me  happy  if  I  had  it,  did  not  give  me  the  feel- 
ing. My  education,  I  thought,  had  failed  to  create  these 
feelings  in  sufficient  strength  to  resist  the  dissolving  influence 

IS  of  analysis,  while  the  whole  course  of  my  intellectual  cultiva- 
tion had  made  precocious  and  premature  analysis  the 
inveterate  habit  of  my  mind.  I  was  thus,  as  I  said  to  myself, 
left  stranded  at  the  commencement  of  my  voyage,  with  a 
well-equipped  ship  and  a  rudder,  but  no  sail;   without  any 

20  real  desire  for  the  ends  which  I  had  been  so  carefully  fitted 
out  to  work  for:  no  delight  in  virtue,  or  the  general  good, 
but  also  just  as  little  in  anything  else.  The  fountains  of 
vanity  and  ambition  seemed  to  have  dried  up  within  me, 
as  completely  as  those  of  benevolence.     I  had  had  (as  I 

25  reflected)  some  gratification  of  vanity  at  too  early  an  age: 
I  had  obtained  some  distinction,  and  felt  myself  of  some 
importance,  before  the  desire  of  distinction  and  of  import- 
ance had  grown  into  a  passion:  and  little  as  it  was  which  I 
had  attained,  yet  having  been  attained  too  early,  like  all 

30 pleasures  enjoyed  too  soon,  it  had  made  me  blase  and  indif- 
ferent to  the  pursuit.  Thus  neither  selfish  nor  unselfish 
pleasures  were  pleasures  to  me.  And  there  seemed  no 
power  in  nature  sufficient  to  begin  the  formation  of  my 
character  anew,   and   create  in  a  mind  now  irretrievably 

35  analytic,  fresh  associations  of  pleasure  with  any  of  the 
objects  of  human  desire. 

These  were  the  thoughts  which  mingled  with  the  dry 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  33 

heavy  dejection  of  the  melancholy  winter  of  1826-7.  Dur- 
ing this  time  I  was  not  incapable  of  my  usual  occupations. 
I  went  on  with  them  mechanically,  by  the  mere  force  of 
habit.  I  had  been  so  drilled  in  a  certain  sort  of  mental 
exercise,  that  I  could  still  carry  it  on  when  all  the  spirit  5 
had  gone  out  of  it.  I  even  composed  and  spoke  several 
speeches  at  the  debating  society,  how,  or  with  what  degree 
of  success,  I  know  not.  Of  four  years'  continual  speaking 
at  that  society,  this  is  the  only  year  of  which  I  remember 
next  to  nothing.  Two  lines  of  Coleridge,  in  whom  alone  10 
of  all  writers  I  have  found  a  true  description  of  what  I  felt, 
were  often  in  my  thoughts,  not  at  this  time  (for  I  had  never 
read  them),  but  in  a  later  period  of  the  same  mental  malady: 

"  Work  without  hope  draws  nectar  in  a  sieve. 
And  hope  without  an  object  cannot  live."  15 

In  all  probability  my  case  was  by  no  means  so  peculiar  as  I 
fancied  it,  and  I  doubt  not  that  many  others  have  passed 
through  a  similar  state;  but  the  idiosyncrasies  of  my  educa- 
tion had  given  to  the  general  phenomenon  a  special  char- 
acter, which  made  it  seem  the  natural  effect  of  causes  that  20 
it  was  hardly  possible  for  time  to  remove.  I  frequently 
asked  myself,  if  I  could,  or  if  I  was  bound  to  go  on  living,  when 
life  must  be  passed  in  this  manner.  I  generally  answered 
to  myself,  that  I  did  not  think  I  could  possibly  bear  it 
beyond  a  year.  When,  however,  not  more  than  half  that  25 
duration  of  time  had  clasped,  a  small  ray  of  light  broke  in 
upon  my  gloom.  I  was  reading,  accidentally,  Marmontel's 
"  Memoires,"  and  came  to  the  passage  which  relates  his 
father's  death,  the  distressed  jjosition  of  the  family,  and  the 
sudden  inspiration  by  which  he,  then  a  mere  boy,  felt  and  30 
made  them  feel  that  he  would  be  everything  to  them'— 
would  supply  the  place  of  all  that  they  had  lost.  A  vivid 
conception  of  the  scene  and  its  feelings  came  over  me,  and 
I  was  moved  to  tears.  From  this  moment  my  burden  grew 
lighter.  The  oppression  of  the  thought  that  all  feeling  35 
was  dead  within  me,  was  gone.     I  was  no  longer  hopeless: 


34  JOHN  STUART  MILL 

I  was  not  a  stock  or  a  stone.  I  had  still,  it  seemed,  some  of 
the  material  out  of  which  all  worth  of  character,  and  all 
capacity  for  happiness,  are  made.  Relieved  from  my  ever 
present    sense    of   irremediable   wretchedness,    I    gradually 

5  found  that  the  ordinary  incidents  of  life  could  again  give 
me  some  pleasure;  that  I  could  again  find  enjoyment, 
not  intense,  but  sufficient  for  cheerfulness,  in  sunshine 
and  sky,  in  books,  in  conversation,  in  public  affairs;  and 
that  there  was,  once  more,  excitement,  though  of  a  moderate 

lo  kind,  in  exerting  myself  for  my  opinions,  and  for  the  public 
good.  Thus  the  cloud  gradually  drew  off,  and  I  again 
enjoyed  life:  and  though  I  had  several  relapses,  some  of 
which  lasted  many  months,  I  never  again  was  as  miserable 
as  I  had  been. 

IS  The  experiences  of  this  period  had  two  very  marked 
effects  on  my  opinions  and  character.  In  the  first  place, 
they  led  me  to  adopt  a  theory  of  Hfe,  very  unlike  that  on 
which  I  had  before  acted,  and  having  much  in  common 
with  what  at  that  time  I  certainly  had  never  heard  of, 

20  the  anti-self-consciousness  theory  of  Carlyle.  I  never, 
indeed,  wavered  in  the  conviction  that  happiness  is  the 
test  of  all  rules  of  conduct,  and  the  end  of  life.  But  I  now 
thought  that  this  end  was  only  to  be  attained  by  not  making 
it  the  direct  end.     Those  only  are  happy  (I  thought)  who 

25  have  their  minds  fixed  on  some  object  other  than  their  own 
happiness;  on  the  happiness  of  others,  on  the  improvement 
of  mankind,  even  on  some  art  or  pursuit,  followed  not  as  a 
means,  but  as  itself  an  ideal  end.  Aiming  thus  at  something 
else,  they  find  happiness  by  the  way.     The  enjoyments  of 

30  life  (such  was  now  my  theory)  are  sufficient  to  make  it  a 
pleasant  thing,  when  they  are  taken  en  passant,  without 
being  made  a  principal  object.  Once  make  them  so,  and  they 
are  immediately  felt  to  be  insufficient.  They  will  not  bear  a 
scrutinising   examination.     Ask   yourself   whether   you   are 

35  happy,  and  you  cease  to  be  so.  The  only  chance  is  to  treat, 
not  happiness,  but  some  end  external  to  it,  as  the  purpose 
of  life.     Let   your   self-consciousness,   your   scrutiny,   your 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  35 

self-interrogation,  exhaust  themselves  on  that;  and  if 
otherwise  fortunately  circumstanced  you  will  inhale  hap- 
piness with  the  air  you  breathe,  without  dwelling  on  it  or 
thinking  about  it,  without  either  forestalling  it  in  imagina- 
tion, or  putting  it  to  flight  by  fatal  questioning.  This  5 
theory  now  became  the  basis  of  my  philosophy  of  life.  And 
I  still  hold  to  it  as  the  best  theory  for  all  those  who  have 
but  a  moderate  degree  of  sensibility  and  of  capacity  for 
enjoyment,  that  is,  for  the  great  majority  of  mankind. 

The  other  important  change  which  my  opinions  at  this  10 
time  underwent,  was  that  I,  for  the  first  time,  gave  its  proper 
place,  among  the  prime  necessities  of  human  well-being, 
to  the  internal  culture  of  the  individual.  I  ceased  to  attach 
almost  exclusive  importance  to  the  ordering  of  outward 
circumstances,  and  the  training  of  the  human  being  for  15 
speculation  and  for  action. 

I  had  now  learnt  by  experience  that  the  passive  suscept- 
ibilities needed  to  be  cultivated  as  w^ell  as  the  active  capac- 
ities, and  required  to  be  nourished  and  enriched  as  well  as 
guided.  I  did  not,  for  an  instant,  lose  sight  of,  or  under-  20 
value,  that  part  of  the  truth  which  I  had  seen  before;  I 
never  turned  recreant  to  intellectual  culture,  or  ceased  to 
consider  the  power  and  practice  of  analysis  as  an  essential 
condition  both  of  individual  and  of  social  improvement. 
But  I  thought  that  it  had  consequences  which  required  to  25 
be  corrected,  by  joining  other  kinds  of  cultivation  with  it. 
The  maintenance  of  a  due  balance  among  the  faculties, 
now  seemed  to  me  of  primary  importance.  The  cultiva- 
tion of  the  feelings  became  one  of  the  cardinal  points  in  my 
ethical  and  philosophical  creed.  And  my  thoughts  and  30 
inclinations  turned  in  an  increasing  degree  towards  what- 
ever seemed  capable  of  being  instrumental  to  that  object. 

I  now  began  to  find  meaning  in  the  things  which  I  had  read 
or  heard  about  the  importance  of  poetry  and  art  as  instru- 
ments of  human  culture.     But  it  was  some  time  longer  before  35 
I  began  to  know  this  by  personal  experience.     The  only 
one  of  the  imaginative  arts  in  which  I  had  from  childhood 


36  JOHN   STUART  MILL 

taken  great  pleasure,  was  music;  the  best  effect  of  which 
(and  in  this  it  surpasses  perhaps  every  other  art)  consists 
in  exciting  enthusiasm;  in  winding  up  to  a  high  pitch  those 
feeUngs  of  an  elevated  kind  which  are  already  in  the  char- 
S  acter,  but  to  which  this  excitement  gives  a  glow  and  a  fervour, 
which,  though  transitory  at  its  utmost  height,  is  precious 
for  sustaining  them  at  other  times.  This  effect  of  music  I 
had  often  experienced;  but  like  all  my  pleasurable  sus- 
ceptibilities it  was  suspended  during  the  gloomy  period. 

lol  had  sought  relief  again  and  again  from  this  quarter,  but 
found  none.  After  the  tide  had  turned,  and  I  was  in  proc- 
ess of  recovery,  I  had  been  helped  forward  by  music,  but 
in  a  much  less  elevated  manner.  I  at  this  time  first  became 
acquainted  with  Weber's  Oberon,  and  the  extreme  pleasure 

IS  which  I  drew  from  its  delicious  melodies  did  me  good,  by 
showing  me  a  source  of  pleasure  to  which  I  was  as  susceptible 
as  ever.  The  good,  however,  was  much  impaired  by  the 
thought,  that  the  pleasure  of  music  (as  is  quite  true  of  such 
pleasure  as  this  was,  that  of  mere  tune)  fades  with  familiarity, 

20  and  requires  either  to  be  revived  by  intermittence,  or  fed 
by  continual  novelty.  And  it  is  very  characteristic  both 
of  my  then  state,  and  of  the  general  tone  of  my  mind  at  this 
period  of  my  life,  that  I  was  seriously  tormented  by  the 
thought  of  the  exhaustibility  of  musical  combinations.     The 

25  octave  consists  only  of  five  tones  and  two  semi-tones,  which 
can  be  put  together  in  only  a  limited  number  of  ways,  of 
which  but  a  small  proportion  are  beautiful:  most  of  these, 
it  seemed  to  me,  must  have  been  already  discovered,  and 
there  could  not  be  room  for  a  long  succession  of  Mozarts 

30  and  Webers,  to  strike  out,  as  these  had  done,  entirely  new 
and  surpassingly  rich  veins  of  musical  beauty.  This  source 
of  anxiety  may,  perhaps,  be  thought  to  resemble  that  of  the 
philosophers  of  Laputa,  who  feared  lest  the  sun  should  be 
burnt    out.     It    was,    however,    connected    with    the    best 

35  feature  in  my  character,  and  the  only  good  point  to  be 
found  in  my  very  unromantic  and  in  no  way  honourable 
distress.     For   though   my   dejection,    honestly   looked   at, 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  37 

could  not  be  called  other  than  egotistical,  produced  by  the 
ruin,  as  I  thought,  of  my  fabric  of  happiness,  yet  the  destiny 
of  mankind  in  general  was  ever  in  my  thoughts,  and  could 
not  be  separated  from  my  own.  I  felt  that  the  flaw  in  my 
life,  must  be  a  flaw  in  life  itself;  that  the  question  was,  s 
whether,  if  the  reformers  of  society  and  government  could 
succeed  in  their  objects,  and  every  person  in  the  community 
were  free  and  in  a  state  of  physical  comfort,  the  pleasures 
of  life,  being  no  longer  kept  up  by  struggle  and  privation, 
would  cease  to  be  pleasures.  And  I  felt  that  unless  I  could  lo 
see  my  way  to  some  better  hope  than  this  for  human  happiness 
in  general  my  dejection  must  continue;  but  that  if  I  could 
see  such  an  outlet,  I  should  then  look  on  the  world  with 
pleasure;  content  as  far  as  I  was  myself  concerned,  with 
any  fair  share  of  the  general  lot.  15 

This  state  of  my  thoughts  and  feelings  made  the  fact  of 
my  reading  Wordsworth  for  the  first  time  (in  the  autumn 
of  1828),  an  important  event  in  my  life.  I  took  up  the  col- 
lection of  his  poems  from  curiosity,  with  no  expectation  of 
mental  relief  from  it,  though  I  had  before  resorted  to  poetry  20 
with  that  hope.  In  the  worst  period  of  my  depression,  I 
had  read  through  the  whole  of  Byron  (then  new  to  me), 
to  try  whether  a  poet,  whose  peculiar  department  was 
supposed  to  be  that  of  the  intenser  feelings,  could  rouse 
any  feeling  in  me.  As  might  be  expected,  I  got  no  good  25 
from  this  reading,  but  the  reverse.  The  poet's  state  of 
mind  was  too  like  my  o^\^l.  His  was  the  lament  of  a  man 
who  had  worn  out  all  pleasures,  and  who  seemed  to  think 
that  life,  to  all  who  possess  the  good  things  of  it,  must  nec- 
essarily be  the  vapid,  uninteresting  thing  which  I  found  it.  30 
His  Harold  and  Alanfred  had  the  same  burden  on  them 
which  I  had;  and  I  was  not  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  desire 
any  comfort  from  the  vehement  sensual  passion  of  his  Giaours, 
or  the  suUenness  of  his  Laras.  But  while  Byron  was  exactly 
what  did  not  suit  my  condition,  Wordsworth  was  exactly  35 
what  did.  I  had  looked  into  the  Excursion  two  or  three 
years  before,  and  found  little  in  it;    and  I  should  probably 


38  JOHN  STUART  MILL 

have  found  as  little,  had  I  read  it  at  this  time.  But  the 
miscellaneous  poems,  in  the  two-volume  edition  of  1815 
(to  which  little  of  value  was  added  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
author's  life),  proved  to  be  the  precise  thing  for  my  mental 
5  wants  at  that  particular  juncture. 

In  the  first  place,  these  poems  addressed  themselves 
powerfully  to  one  of  the  strongest  of  my  pleasurable  sus- 
ceptibilities, the  love  of  rural  objects  and  natural  scenery; 
to  which  I  had  been  indebted  not  only  for  much  of  the  pleas- 

loure  of  my  life,  but  quite  recently  for  relief  from  one  of  my 
longest  relapses  into  depression.  In  this  power  of  rural 
beauty  over  me,  there  was  a  foundation  laid  for  taking 
pleasure  in  Wordsworth's  poetry;  the  more  so,  as  his  scenery 
lies  mostly  among  mountains,  which,  owing  to  my  early 

isPyrenean  excursion,  were  my  ideal  of  natural  beauty.  But 
Wordsworth  would  never  have  had  any  great  efifect  on  me, 
if  he  had  merely  placed  before  me  beautiful  pictures  of 
natural  scenery.  Scott  does  this  still  better  than  Words- 
worth,   and    a    very    second-rate  landscape  does    it    more 

20  effectually  than  any  poet.  What  made  Wordsworth's 
poems  a  medicine  for  my  state  of  mind,  was  that  they 
expressed,  not  mere  outward  beauty,  but  states  of  feeling, 
and  of  thought  coloured  by  feeling,  under  the  excitement  of 
beauty.     They  seemed  to  be  the  very  culture  of  the  feel- 

25ings  which  I  was  in  quest  of.  In  them  I  seemed  to  draw 
from  a  source  of  inward  joy,  of  sympathetic  and  imaginative 
pleasures,  which  could  be  shared  in  by  all  human  beings; 
which  had  no  connection  with  struggle  or  imperfection,  but 
would  be  made  richer  by  every  improvement  in  the  physical 

30  or  social  condition  of  mankind.  From  them  I  seemed  to 
learn  what  would  be  the  perennial  sources  of  happiness, 
when  all  the  greater  evils  of  life  shall  have  been  removed. 
And  I  felt  myself  at  once  better  and  happier  as  I  came  under 
their  influence.     There  have  certainly  been,   even  in   our 

35 own  age,  greater  poets  than  Wordsworth;  but  poetry  of 
deeper  and  loftier  feeling  could  not  have  done  for  me  at 
that  time  what  his  did.     I  needed  to  be  made  to  feel  that 


A  CRISIS  IN  MY  MENTAL  HISTORY  39 

there  was  real,  permanent  happiness  in  tranquil  contempla- 
tion. Wordsworth  taught  me  this,  not  only  without  turn- 
ing away  from,  but  with  a  greatly  increased  interest  in  the 
common  feelings  and  common  destiny  of  human  beings.  And 
the  delight  which  these  poems  gave  me,  proved  that  with  cul-  5 
ture  of  this  sort,  there  was  nothing  to  dread  from  the  most 
confirmed  habit  of  analysis.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  Poems 
came  the  famous  Ode,  falsely  called  Platonic,  "  Intimations  of 
Immortality :"  in  which,  along  with  more  than  his  usual  sweet- 
ness of  melody  and  rhythm,  and  along  with  the  two  passages  10 
of  grand  imagery  but  bad  philosophy  so  often  quoted,  I 
found  that  he  too  had  had  similar  experience  to  mine;  that 
he  also  had  felt  that  the  first  freshness  of  youthful  enjoyment 
of  life  was  not  lasting;  but  that  he  had  sought  for  compensa- 
tion, and  found  it,  in  the  way  in  which  he  was  now  teaching  15 
me  to  find  it.  The  result  was  that  I  gradually,  but  com- 
pletely, emerged  from  my  habitual  depression,  and  was 
never  again  subject  to  it.  I  long  continued  to  value  Words- 
worth less  according  to  his  intrinsic  merits,  than  by  the 
measure  of  what  he  had  done  for  me.  Compared  with  the  20 
greatest  poets,  he  may  be  said  to  be  the  poet  of  unpoetical 
natures,  possessed  of  quiet  and  contemplative  tastes.  But 
unpoetical  natures  are  precisely  those  which  require  poetic 
cultivation.  This  cultivation  Wordsworth  is  much  more 
fitted  to  give,  than  poets  who  are  intrinsically  far  more  poets  25 
than  he. 


OLD  CHINA  1 

Charles  Lamb 

I  HAVE  an  almost  feminine  partiality  for  old  china.  When 
I  go  to  see  any  great  house,  I  inquire  for  the  china-closet, 
and  next  for  the  picture-gallery.  I  cannot  defend  the  order 
of  preference,  but  by  saying  that  we  have  all  some  taste 
5  or  other,  of  too  ancient  a  date  to  admit  of  our  remembering 
distinctly  that  it  was  an  acquired  one.  I  can  call  to  mind 
the  first  play,  and  the  first  exhibition,  that  I  was  taken  to; 
but  I  am  not  conscious  of  a  time  when  china  jars  and  saucers 
were  introduced  into  my  imagination. 

lo  I  had  no  repugnance  then — why  should  I  now  have? — 
to  those  little,  lawless,  azure-tinctured  grotesques,  that, 
under  the  notion  of  men  and  women,  float  about,  uncir- 
cumscribed  by  any  element  in  that  world  before  perspec- 
tive— a  china  tea-cup. 

15  I  like  to  see  my  old  friends,  whom  distance  cannot  diminish, 
figuring  up  in  the  air  (so  they  appear  to  our  optics),  yet  on 
terra  firma  still — for  so  we  must  in  courtesy  interpret  that 
speck  of  deeper  blue,  which  the  decorous  artist,  to  prevent 
absurdity,  had  made  to  spring  up  beneath  their  sandals. 

20  I  love  the  men  with  women's  faces,  and  women,  if  pos- 
sible, with  still  more  womanish  expressions. 

Here  is  a  young  and  courtly  Mandarin,  handing  tea  to 
a  lady  from  a  salver — two  miles  off.  See  how  distance 
seems  to  set  oflf  respect!  And  here  the  same  lady,  or  another 

25 — for  likeness  is  identity  on  tea-cups — is  stepping  into  a 
little  fairy  boat,  moored  on  the  hither  side  of  this  calm 
garden  river,  with  a  dainty  mincing  foot,  which  in  a  right 

1  From  "  Last  Essays  of  Ella,"  1833. 

40 


OLD  CHINA  41 

angle  of  incidence  (as  angles  go  in  our  world)  must  infallibly 
land  her  in  the  midst  of  a  flowery  mead — a  furlong  off  on  the 
other  side  of  the  same  strange  stream! 

Further  on — if  far  or  near  can  be  predicated  of  their  world 
— see  horses,  trees,  pagodas,  dancing  the  hays.^  5 

Here — a  cow  and  rabbit  couchant,  and  coextensive — so 
objects  show,  seen  through  the  lucid  atmosphere  of  fine 
Cathay. 

I  was  pointing  out  to  my  cousin  last  evening,  over  our 
Hyson  (which  we  are  old-fashioned  enough  to  drink  unmixed  lo 
still  of  an  afternoon),  some  of  these  speciosa  mir acuta?  upon 
a  set  of  extraordinary  old  blue  china  (a  recent  purchase) 
which  we  were  now  for  the  first  time  using;  and  could  not 
help  remarking,  how  favourable  circumstances  had  been  to  us 
of  late  years,  that  we  could  afford  to  please  the  eye  some- 15 
times  with  trifles  of  this  sort — when  a  passing  sentiment 
seemed  to  overshade  the  brows  of  my  companion,  I  am 
quick  at  detecting  these  summer  clouds  in  Bridget. 

"  I  wish  the  good  old   times   would  come  again,"   she 
said,  "  when  we  were  not  quite  so  rich.     I  do  not  mean  20 
that  I  want  to  be  poor;    but  there  was  a  middle  state," — ■ 
so  she  was  pleased  to  ramble  on, — "  in  which  I  am  sure  we 
were  a  great  deal  happier.     A  purchase  is  but  a  purchase, 
now  that  you  have  money  enough  and  to  spare.     Formerly 
it  used  to  be  a  triumph.     When  we  coveted  a  cheap  luxury  25 
(and,  oh!  how  much  ado  I  had  to  get  you  to  consent  in  those 
times!)  we  were  used  to  have  a  debate  two  or  three  days 
before,  and  to  weigh  the /or  and  against,  and  think  what  we 
might  spare  it  out  of,  and  what  saving  we  could  hit  upon, 
that  should  be  an  equivalent.     A  thing  was  worth  buying  30 
then,  when  we  felt  the  money  that  we  paid  for  it. 

"  Do  you  remember  the  brown  suit,  which  you  made  'to 
hang  upon  you,  till  your  friends  cried  shame  upon  you,  it 
grew  so  threadbare — and  all  because  of  that  folio  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  which  you  dragged  home  late  at  night  from  35 

^  The  hays:   an  old  English  dance. 

^  Speciosa  miracula;   beautiful  marvels. 


42  CHARLES   LAMB 

Barker's  in  Covent-garden?  Do  you  remember  how  we 
eyed  it  for  weeks  before  we  could  make  up  our  minds  to 
the  purchase,  and  had  not  come  to  a  determination  till 
it  was  near  ten  o'clock  of  the  Saturday  night,  when  you  set 
soff  from  Islington,  fearing  you  should  be  too  late — and 
when  the  old  bookseller  with  some  grumbling  opened  his 
shop,  and  by  the  twinkling  taper  (for  he  was  setting  bed- 
ward)  lighted  out  the  relic  from  his  dusty  treasures — and 
when  you  lugged  it  home,  wishing  it  were  twice  as  cumber- 

losome — and  when  you  presented  it  to  me — and  when  we 
were  exploring  the  perfectness  of  it  (collating  you  called  it) 
— and  while  I  was  repairing  some  of  the  loose  leaves  with 
paste,  which  your  impatience  would  not  suffer  to  be  left  till 
daybreak — was   there  no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor  man? 

15  or  can  those  neat  black  clothes  which  you  wear  now,  and 
are  so  careful  to  keep  brushed,  since  we  have  become  rich 
and  finical,  give  you  half  the  honest  vanity  with  which  you 
flaunted  it  about  in  that  overworn  suit — your  old  corbeau — 
for  four  or  five  weeks  longer  than  you  should  have  done, 

20  to  pacify  your  conscience  for  the  mighty  sum  of  fifteen — or 
sixteen  shillings  was  it? — a  great  affair  we  thought  it  then — 
which  you  had  lavished  on  the  old  folio.  Now  you  can 
afford  to  buy  any  book  that  pleases  you,  but  I  do  not  see 
that  you  ever  bring  me  home  any  nice  old  purchases  now. 

25  "  When  you  came  home  with  twenty  apologies  for  laying 
out  a  less  number  of  shillings  upon  that  print  after  Lionardo 
which  we  christened  the  'Lady  Blanch';  when  you  looked 
at  the  purchase,  and  thought  of  the  money — and  thought 
of  the  money,  and  looked  again  at  the  picture — was  there 

30  no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor  man?  Now,  you  have  nothing 
to  do  but  to  walk  into  Colnaghi's,  and  buy  a  wilderness  of 
Lionardos.     Yet  do  you? 

"  Then,  do  you  remember  our  pleasant  walks  to  Enfield, 
and  Potter's  bar,  and  Waltham,  when  we  had  a  holiday — 

35  holidays  and  all  other  fun  are  gone  now  we  are  rich — and 
the  little  handbasket  in  which  I  used  to  deposit  our  day's 
fare  of  savory  cold  lamb  and  salad — and  how  you  would 


OLD  CHINA  43 

pry  about  at  noon-tide  for  some  decent  house,  where  we 
might  go  in  and  produce  our  store — only  paying  for  the  ale 
that  you  must  call  for — and  speculate  upon  the  looks  of 
the  landlady,  and  whether  she  was  Hkely  to  allow  us  a 
tablecloth — and  wish  for  such  another  honest  hostess  as  5 
Izaak  Walton  has  described  many  a  one  on  the  pleasant 
banks  of  the  Lea,  when  he  went  a  fishing — and  sometimes 
they  would  prove  obliging  enough,  and  sometimes  they 
would  look  grudgingly  upon  us — but  we  had  cheerful  looks 
still  for  one  another,  and  would  eat  our  plain  food  savorily,  10 
scarcely  grudging  Piscator  ^  his  Trout  Hall?  Now,  when 
we  go  out  a  day's  pleasuring,  which  is  seldom,  moreover, 
we  ride  part  of  the  way,  and  go  into  a  fine  inn,  and  order 
the  best  of  dinners,  never  debating  the  expense,  which,  after 
all,  never  has  half  the  relish  of  those  chance  country  snaps,  15 
when  we  were  at  the  mercy  of  uncertain  usage,  and  a  pre- 
carious welcome. 

"  You  are  too  proud  to  see  a  play  anywhere  now  but  in 
the  pit.  Do  you  remember  where  it  was  we  used  to  sit, 
when  we  saw  the  Battle  of  Hexham,  and  the  Surrender  of  20 
Calais,  and  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  in  the  Children  in 
the  Wood — when  we  squeezed  out  our  shilling  apiece  to  sit 
three  or  four  times  in  a  season  in  the  one-shilling  gallery — 
where  you  felt  all  the  time  that  you  ought  not  to  have 
brought  me — and  more  strongly  I  felt  obligation  to  you  25 
for  having  brought  me — and  the  pleasure  was  the  better 
for  a  little  shame — and  when  the  curtain  drew  up,  what 
cared  we  for  our  place  in  the  house,  or  what  mattered  it 
where  we  were  sitting,  when  our  thoughts  were  with  Rosalind 
in  Arden,  or  with  Viola  at  the  Court  of  lUyria?  You  used  30 
to  say  that  the  gallery  was  the  best  place  of  all  for  enjoying 
a  play  socially;  that  the  relish  of  such  exhibitions  mustvbe 
in  proportion  to  the  infrequency  of  going;  that  the  company 
we  met  there,  not  being  in  general  readers  of  plays,  were 
obliged  to  attend  the  more,  and  did  attend,  to  what  was  35 

'  Piscator:  The  Angler — the  author's  spokesman  in  Walton's  "  The 
Complete  Angler." 


44  CHARLES   LAMB 

going  on  on  the  stage,  because  a  word  lost  would  have  been  a 
chasm  which  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  fill  up.  With 
such  reflections  we  consoled  our  pride  then,  and  I  appeal 
to  you  whether,  as  a  woman,  I  met  generally  with  less  atten- 
Stion  and  accommodation  than  I  have  done  since  in  more 
expensive  situations  in  the  house?  The  getting  in,  indeed,  and 
the  crowding  up  those  inconvenient  staircases,  was  bad 
enough, — but  there  was  still  a  law  of  civility  to  woman 
recognised  to  quite  as  great  an  extent  as  we  ever  found  in 

lothe  other  passages — and  how  a  Httle  difficulty  overcome 
heightened  the  snug  seat,  and  the  play,  afterward!  Now 
we  can  only  pay  our  money,  and  walk  in.  You  cannot  see, 
you  say,  in  the  galleries  now.  I  am  sure  we  saw,  and  heard 
too,  well  enough  then — but  sight,  and  all,  I  think,  is  gone 

15  with  our  poverty. 

"  There  was  pleasure  in  eating  strawberries,  before  they 
became  quite  common — in  the  first  dish  of  peas,  while  they 
were  yet  dear — to  have  them  for  a  nice  supper,  a  treat. 
What  treat  can  we  have  now?  If  we  were  to  treat  ourselves 

20  now — that  is,  to  have  dainties  a  little  above  our  means, 
it  would  be  selfish  and  wicked.  It  is  the  very  little  more 
that  we  allow  ourselves  beyond  what  the  actual  poor  can  get 
at,  that  makes  what  I  call  a  treat — when  two  people  living 
together,  as  we  have  done,  now  and  then  indulge  themselves 

25  in  a  cheap  luxury,  which  both  like;  while  each  apologises, 
and  is  willing  to  take  both  halves  of  the  blame  to  his  single 
share.  I  see  no  harm  in  people  making  much  of  themselves  in 
that  sense  of  the  word.  It  may  give  them  a  hint  how  to 
make  much  of  others.     But  now — what  I  mean  by  the  word 

30  — we  never  do  make  much  of  ourselves.  None  but  the  poor 
can  do  it.  I  do  not  mean  the  veriest  poor  of  all,  but  persons 
as  we  were,  just  above  poverty. 

"  I  know  what  you  were  going  to  say,  that  it  is  mighty 
pleasant  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  make  all  meet, — and 

35  much  ado  we  used  to  have  every  Thirty-first  Night  of  Dec- 
ember to  account  for  our  exceedings — many  a  long  face 
did  you  make  over  your  puzzled  accounts,  and  in  contriving 


OLD  CHINA  45 

to  make  it  out  how  we  had  spent  so  much — or  that  we  had 
not  spent  so  much — or  that  it  was  impossible  we  should 
spend  so  much  next  year — and  still  we  found  our  slender 
capital  decreasing — but  then,  betwixt  ways,  and  projects, 
and  compromises  of  one  sort  or  another  and  talk  of  curtail-  s 
ing  this  charge,  and  doing  without  that  for  the  future — and 
the  hope  that  youth  brings,  and  laughing  spirits  (in  which 
you  were  never  poor  till  now),  we  pocketed  up  our  loss,  and 
in  conclusion,  with  '  lusty  brimmers  '  (as  you  used  to  quote 
it  out  of  hearty,  cheerful  Mr.  Cotton,^  as  you  called  him),  lo 
we  used  to  welcome  in  the  '  coming  guest.'  Now  we  have 
no  reckoning  at  all  at  the  end  of  the  old  year;  no  flattering 
promises  about  the  new  year  doing  better  for  us." 

Bridget  is  so  sparing  of  her  speech,  on  most  occasions, 
that  when  she  gets  into  a  rhetorical  vein,  I  am  careful  15 
how  I  interrupt  it.     I  could  not  help,  however,  smiling  at 
the  phantom  of  wealth  which  her  dear  imagination  had 

conjured   up   out   of  a   clear   income   of  poor hundred 

pounds  a  year.     "  It  is  true  we  were  happier  when  we  were 
poorer,  but  we  were  also  younger,  my  cousin.     I  am  afraid  20 
we  must  put  up  with  the  excess,  for  if  we  were  to  shake  the 
superf^ux  into  the  sea,  we  should  not  much  mend  ourselves. 
That  we  had  much  to  struggle  with,  as  we  grew  up  together, 
we  have  reason  to  be  most  thankful.     It  strengthened  and 
knit  our  compact  closer.     We  could  never  have  been  what  25 
w^e  have  been  to  each  other,  if  we  had  always  had  the  suf- 
ficiency which  you  now  complain  of.     The  resisting  power, 
those  natural  dilations  of  the  youthful  spirit,  which  circum- 
stances can   not   straiten — with   us   are  long   since  passed 
away.     Competence  to  age  is  supi)lementary  youth,  a  sorry  30 
supplement  indeed,  but  I  fear   the  best  that  is  to  be  had. 
We  must  ride  where  we  formerly  walked:    live  better  and 
lie  softer — and  shall  be  wise  to  do  so — than  we  had  means 
to  do  in  those  good  old  days  you  speak  of.     Yet  could  those 
days  return,  could  you  and  I  once  more  walk  our  thirty  35 
miles  a  day,  could  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  again  be  young, 
^  Charles  Cotton,  a  humorist  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


46  CHARLES   LAMB 

and  you  and  I  be  young  to  see  them,  could  the  good  old  one 
shilling  gallery  days  return — they  are  dreams,  my  cousin, 
now,  but  could  you  and  I  at  this  moment,  instead  of  this 
quiet  argument,  by  our  well-carpeted  fireside,  sitting  on 
5  this  luxurious  sofa — be  once  more  struggling  up  those  incon- 
venient staircases,  pushed  about  and  squeezed,  and  elbowed 
by  the  poorest  rabble  of  poor  gallery  scramblers — could  I 
once  more  hear  those  anxious  shrieks  of  yours,  and  the 
delicious  Thank  God,  we  are  safe,  which  always  followed,  when 

lo  the  topmost  stair,  conquered,  let  in  the  first  light  of  the  whole 
cheerful  theatre  down  beneath  us— I  know  not  the  fathom 
line  that  ever  touched  a  descent  so  deep  as  I  would  be  willing 
to  bury  more  wealth  in  than  Croesus  had,  or  the  great 
Jew  R is  supposed  to  have,  to  purchase  it.     And  now 

15  do  just  look  at  that  merry  little  Chinese  waiter  holding  an 
umbrella,  big  enough  for  a  bed-tester,  over  the  head  of 
that  pretty  insipid  half-Madonna-ish  chit  of  a  lady  in 
that  very  blue  summer-house." 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION?  ^ 
Thomas  Henry  Huxley 

What  is  education?  Above  all  things,  what  is  our  ideal 
of  a  thoroughly  liberal  education?— of  that  education 
which,  if  we  could  begin  life  again,  we  would  give  ourselves — 
of  that  education  which,  if  we  could  mould  the  fates  to  our 
own  will,  we  would  give  our  children?  Well,  I  know  not  5 
what  may  be  your  conceptions  upon  this  matter,  but  I  will 
tell  you  mine,  and  I  hope  I  shall  find  that  our  views  are  not 
very  discrepant. 

Suppose  it  were  perfectly  certain  that  the  life  and  for- 
tune of  every  one  of  us  would,  one  day  or  other,  depend  10 
upon  his  winning  or  losing  a  game  of  chess.  Don't  you  think 
that  we  should  all  consider  it  to  be  a  primary  duty  to  learn 
at  least  the  names  and  the  moves  of  the  pieces;  to  have 
a  notion  of  a  gambit,  and  a  keen  eye  for  all  the  means  of 
giving  and  getting  out  of  check?  Do  you  not  think  that  15 
we  should  look  with  a  disapprobation  amounting  to  scorn, 
upon  the  father  who  allowed  his  son,  or  the  state  which 
allowed  its  members,  to  grow  up  without  knowing  a  pawn 
from  a  knight? 

Yet  it  is  a  very  plain  and  elementary  truth,  that  the  life,  20 
the  fortune,  and  the  happiness  of  every  one  of  us,  and, 
more  or  less,  of  those  who  are  connected  with  us,  do  depend 
upon  our  knowing  something  of  the  rules  of  a  game  infi- 
nitely more  difficult  and  complicated  than  chess.  It  is  a 
game  which  has  been  played  for  untold  ages,  every  man  25 
and  woman  of  us  being  one  of  the  two  players  in  a  game  of 

^  From  "  A  Liberal  Education;   and  Where  to  Find  It,"  1S68. 

47 


48  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

his  or  her  own.  The  chess-board  is  the  world,  the  pieces 
are  the  phenomena  of  the  universe,  the  rules  of  the  game 
are  what  we  call  the  laws  of  Nature.  The  player  on  the 
other  side  is  hidden  from  us.  We  know  that  his  play  is 
5  always  fair,  just  and  patient.  But  also  we  know,  to  our 
cost,  that  he  never  overlooks  a  mistake,  or  makes  the  small- 
est allowance  for  ignorance.  To  the  man  who  plays  well, 
the  highest  stakes  are  paid,  with  that  sort  of  overflowing 
generosity  with  which  the  strong  shows  delight  in  strength. 

loAnd  one  who  plays  ill  is  checkmated — without  haste,  but 
without  remorse. 

My  metaphor  will  remind  some  of  you  of  the  famous 
picture  in  which  Retzsch  has  depicted  Satan  playing  at 
chess  with  man  for  his  soul.     Substitute  for  the  mocking 

IS  fiend  in  that  picture  a  calm,  strong  angel  who  is  playing  for 
love,  as  we  say,  and  would  rather  lose  than  win — and  I 
should  accept  it  as  an  image  of  human  hfe. 

Well,  what  I  mean  by  Education  is  learning  the  rules  of 
this  mighty  game.     In  other  words,  education  is  tl^e  instruc- 

sotion  of  the  intellect  in  the  laws  of  Nature,  under  Vv'hich 
name  I  include  not  merely  things  and  their  forces,  but  men 
and  their  ways;  and  the  fashioning  of  the  affections  and  of 
the  will  into  an  earnest  and  loving  desire  to  move  in  har- 
mony with  those  laws.     For  me,  education  means  neither 

25  more  nor  less  than  this.  Anything  which  professes  to  call 
itself  education  must  he  tried  by  this  standard,  and  if  it 
fails  to  stand  the  test,  I  will  not  call  it  education,  whatever 
may  be  the  force  of  authority,  or  of  numbers,  upon  the 
other  side. 

30  It  is  important  to  remember  that,  in  strictness,  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  an  uneducated  man.  Take  an  extreme 
case.  Suppose  that  an  adult  man,  in  the  full  vigour  of  his 
faculties,  could  be  suddenly  i)laced  in  the  world,  as  Adam  is 
said  to  have  been,  and  then  left  to  do  as  he  best  might. 

35  How  long  would  he  be  left  uneducated?  Not  five  minutes. 
Nature  would  begin  to  teach  him,  through  the  eye,  the  ear, 
the  touch,  the  properties  of  objects.     Pain  and  pleasure 


WHAT  IS   EDUCATION?  49 

would  be  at  his  elbow  telling  him  to  do  this  and  avoid  that; 
and  by  slow  degrees  the  man  would  receive  an  education 
which,  if  narrow,  would  be  thorough,  real,  and  adequate 
to  his  circumstances,  though  there  would  be  no  extras  and 
very  few  accomplishments.  S 

And  if  to  this  solitary  man  entered  a  second  Adam,  or, 
better  still,  an  Eve,  a  new  and  greater  world,  that  of  social 
and  moral  phenomena,  would  be  revealed.  Joys  and  woes, 
compared  with  which  all  others  might  seem  but  faint 
shadows,  would  spring  from  the  new  relations.  Happiness  lo 
and  sorrow  would  take  the  place  of  the  coarser  monitors, 
pleasure  and  pain;  but  conduct  would  still  be  shaped  by 
the  observation  of  the  natural  consequences  of  actions;  or, 
in  other  words,  by  the  laws  of  the  nature  of  man. 

To  every  one  of  us  the  world  was  once  as  fresh  and  new  15 
as  to  Adam.     And  then,  long  before  we  were  susceptible 
of  any  other  modes  of  instruction.  Nature  took  us  in  hand, 
and  every  minute  of  waking  life  brought  its  educational 
influence,  shaping  our  actions  into  rough  accordance  with 
Nature's  laws,  so  that  we  might  not  be  ended  untimely  by  20 
too  gross  disobedience.     Nor  should  I  speak  of  this  process 
of  education  as  past  for  any  one,  be  he  as  old  as  he  may. 
For  every  man  the  world  is  as  fresh  as  it  was  at  the  first 
day,  and  as  full  of  untold  novelties  for  him  who  has  the  eyes 
to  see  them.     And  Nature  is  still  continuing  her  patient  25 
education  of  us  in  that  great  university,  the  universe,  of 
which  we  are  all  members — Nature  having  no  Test-Acts. 

Those  who  take  honours  in  Nature's  university,  who 
learn  the  laws  which  govern  men  and  things  and  obey  them, 
are  the  really  great  and  successful  men  in  this  world.  The  30 
great  mass  of  mankind  are  the  "  PoU,"-^  who  pick  up  just 
enough  to  get  through  without  much  discredit.  Those 
who  won't  learn  at  all  are  plucked;  and  then  you  can't 
come  up  again.     Nature's  pluck  means  extermination. 

Thus  the  question  of  compulsory  education  is  settled  so  35 

^  Poll  (a  slang  term  used  at  Cambridge  University):   those  who  take 
a  degree  without  honours. 


50  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

far  as  Nature  is  concerned.  Her  bill  on  that  question  was 
framed  and  passed  long  ago.  But,  like  all  compulsory 
legislation,  that  of  Nature  is  harsh  and  wasteful  in  its  opera- 
tion. Ignorance  is  visited  as  sharply  as  wilful  disobedience 
5 — incapacity  meets  with  the  same  punishment  as  crime. 
Nature's  disciphne  is  not  even  a  word  and  a  blow,  and  the 
blow  first;  but  the  blow  without  the  word.  It  is  left  to  you 
to  find  out  why  your  ears  are  boxed. 

The  object  of  what  we  commonly  call  education — that 

lo  education  in  which  man  intervenes  and  which  I  shall  dis- 
tinguish as  artificial  education — is  to  make  good  these 
defects  in  Nature's  methods;  to  prepare  the  child  to  receive 
Nature's  education,  neither  incapably  nor  ignorantly,  nor 
with  wilful  disobedience;    and  to  understand  the  prelimi- 

15  nary  symptoms  of  her  pleasure,  without  waiting  for  the  box 
on  the  ear.  In  short,  all  artificial  education  ought  to  be  an 
anticipation  of  natural  education.  And  a  liberal  education 
is  an  artificial  education  which  has  not  only  prepared  a  man 
to  escape  the  great  evils  of  disobedience  to  natural  laws, 

20  but  has  trained  him  to  appreciate  and  to  seize  upon  the 
rewards,  which  Nature  scatters  with  as  free  a  hand  as  her 
penalties. 

That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  education  who  has 
been  so  trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is  the  ready  servant 

25  of  his  will,  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure  all  the  work 
that,  as  a  mechanism,  it  is  capable  of;  whose  intellect  is  a 
clear,  cold,  logic  engine,  with  all  its  parts  of  equal  strength, 
and  in  smooth  working  order;  ready,  like  a  steam  engine, 
to  be  turned  to  any  kind  of  work,  and  spin  the  gossamers 

30 as  well  as  forge  the  anchors  of  the  mind;  whose  mind  is 
stored  with  a  knowledge  of  the  great  and  fundamental 
truths  of  Nature  and  of  the  laws  of  her  operations ;  one  who, 
no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  hfe  and  fire,  but  whose  passions 
are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant 

35  of  a  tender  conscience;  who  has  learned  to  love  all  beauty, 
whether  of  Nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all  vileness,  and  to 
respect  others  as  himself. 


WHAT  IS   EDUCATION?  51 

Such  an  one  and  no  other,  I  conceive,  has  had  a  liberal 
education;  for  he  is,  as  completely  as  a  man  can  be,  in  har- 
mony with  Nature.  He  will  make  the  best  of  her,  and  she 
of  him.  They  will  get  on  together  rarely;  she  as  his  ever 
beneficent  mother;  he  as  her  mouthpiece,  her  conscious 
self,  her  minister  and  interpreter. 


KNOWLEDGE  VIEWED  IN  RELATION  TO 
LEARNING  ^ 

John  Henry  Newman 

It  were  well  if  the  English,  like  the  Greek  language,  pos- 
sessed some  definite  word  to  express,  simply  and  generally, 
intellectual  proficiency  or  perfection,  such  as  "  health,"  as 
used  with  reference  to  the  animal  frame,  and  "  virtue," 

5  with  reference  to  our  moral  nature.  I  am  not  able  to  find 
such  a  term; — talent,  ability,  genius,  belong  distinctly  to 
the  raw  material,  which  is  the  subject-matter,  not  to  that 
excellence  which  is  the  result  of  exercise  and  training.  When 
we   turn,   indeed,    to   the   particular   kinds   of   intellectual 

lo perfection,  words  are  forthcoming  for  our  purpose,  as,  for 
instance,  judgment,  taste,  and  skill;  yet  even  these  belong, 
for  the  most  part,  to  powers  or  habits  bearing  upon 
practice  or  upon  art,  and  not  to  any  perfect  condition  of 
the  intellect,  considered  in  itself.     Wisdom,  again,  is  cer- 

i5tainly  a  more  comprehensive  word  than  any  other,  but  it 
has  a  direct  relation  to  conduct,  and  to  human  life.  Knowl- 
edge, indeed,  and  science  express  purely  intellectual  ideas 
but  still  not  a  state  or  quality  of  the  intellect;  for  knowledge, 
in  its  ordinary  sense,  is  but  one  of  its  circumstances,  denot- 

2oing  a  possession  or  a  habit;  and  science  has  been  appro- 
priated to  the  subject-matter  of  the  intellect,  instead  of 
belonging  in  English,  as  it  ought  to  do,  to  the  intellect  itself. 
The  consequence  is  that,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  many 
words  are  necessary,  in  order,  first,  to  bring  out  and  convey 

25  what  surely  is  no  difficult  idea  in  itself, — that  of  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  intellect  as  an  end;   next,  in  order  to  recommend 

^  Discourse  VI  in  "  The  Idea  of  a  University,"  1852. 

52 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      53 

what  surely  is  no  unreasonable  object;  and  lastly,  to  describe 
and  make  the  mind  realise  the  particular  perfection  in  which 
that  object  consists.  Every  one  knows  practically  what  are 
the  constituents  of  health  or  of  virtue;  and  every  one 
recognises  health  and  virtue  as  ends  to  be  pursued;  it  is  5 
otherwise  with  intellectual  excellence,  and  this  must  be  my 
excuse,  if  I  seem  to  anyone  to  be  bestowing  a  good  deal  of 
labour  on  a  preliminary  matter. 

In  default  of  a  recognised  term,  I  have  called  the  per- 
fection or  virtue  of  the  intellect  by  the  name  of  philosophy,  10 
philosophical  knowledge,  enlargement  of  mind,  or  illumina- 
tion, terms  which  are  not  uncommonly  given  to  it  by  writers 
of  this  day:  but,  whatever  name  we  bestow  on  it,  it  is,  I 
believe,  as  a  matter  of  history,  the  business  of  a  university 
to  make  this  intellectual  culture  its  direct  scope,  or  to  employ  15 
itself  in  the  education  of  the  intellect, — just  as  the  work  of  a 
hospital  lies  in  healing  the  sick  or  wounded,  of  a  riding  or 
fencing  school,  or  of  a  gymnasium,  in  exercising  the  limbs,  of 
an  almshouse,  in  aiding  and  solacing  the  old,  of  an  orphanage, 
in  protecting  innocence,  of  a  penitentiary,  in  restoring  the  20 
guilty.  I  say,  a  university,  taken  in  its  bare  idea,  and  before 
we  view  it  as  an  instrument  of  the  church,  has  this  object  and 
this  mission;  it  contemplates  neither  moral  impression  nor 
mechanical  production;  it  professes  to  exercise  the  mind 
neither  in  art  nor  in  duty;  its  function  is  intellectual  culture;  25 
here  it  may  leave  its  scholars,  and  it  has  done  its  work  when 
it  has  done  as  much  as  this.  It  educates  the  intellect  to 
reason  well  in  all  matters,  to  reach  out  towards  truth,  and 
to  grasp  it. 

This,  I  said  in  my  foregoing  discourse,  was  the  object  30 
of  a  university,  viewed  in  itself,  and  apart  from  the  Catholic 
Church,  or  from  the  state,  or  from  any  other  power  which 
may  use  it;  and  I  illustrated  this  in  various  ways.  I  said 
that  the  intellect  must  have  an  excellence  of  its  own,  for 
there  was  nothing  which  had  not  its  specific  good;  that  the 35 
word  "  educate  "  would  not  be  used  of  intellectual  culture, 
as  it  is  used,  had  not  the  intellect  had  an  end  of  its  own;  that, 


54  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

had  it  not  such  an  end,  there  would  be  no  meaning  in  calling 
certain  intellectual  exercises  "  liberal,"  in  contrast  with 
"  useful,"  as  is  commonly  done;  that  the  very  notion  of  a 
philosophical  temper  implied  it,  for  it  threw  us  back  upon 
S  research  and  system  as  ends  in  themselves,  distinct  from 
effects  and  works  of  any  kind;  that  a  philosophical  scheme 
of  knowledge,  or  system  of  sciences,  could  not,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  issue  in  any  one  definite  art  or  pursuit,  as 
its  end;    and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  discovery  and 

lo  contemplation  of  truth,  to  which  research  and  systematising 
led,  were  surely  sufficient  ends,  though  nothing  beyond  them 
were  added,  and  that  they  had  ever  been  accounted  sufficient 
by  mankind. 

Here  then  I  take  up  the  subject;   and  having  determined 

15  that  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect  is  an  end  distinct  and 
sufficient  in  itself,  and  that,  so  far  as  words  go,  it  is  an  enlarge- 
ment or  illumination,  I  proceed  to  inquire  what  this  mental 
breadth,  or  power,  or  light,  or  philosophy  consists  in.  A 
hospital  heals  a  broken  limb  or  cures  a  fever:    what  does 

20  an  institution  effect,  which  professes  the  health,  not  of  the 

body,  not  of  the  soul,  but  of  the  intellect?     What  is  this  good, 

which  in  former  times,  as  well  as  our  own,  has  been  found 

worth  the  notice,  the  appropriation  of  the  Catholic  Church? 

I  have  then  to  investigate,  in  the  discourses  which  follow, 

25  those  qualities  and  characteristics  of  the  intellect  in  which 
its  cultivation  issues  or  rather  consists;  and,  with  a  view  of 
assisting  myself  in  this  undertaking,  I  shall  recur  to  certain 
questions  which  have  already  been  touched  upon.  These 
questions  are  three:   viz.  the  relation  of  intellectual  culture, 

30 first,  to  mere  knowledge;  secondly,  to  professional  knowledge; 
and  thirdly,  to  religious  knowledge.  In  other  words,  are 
acquirements  and  attainments  the  scope  of  a  university  educa- 
tion? or  expertness  in  particular  arts  and  pursuits?  or  tnoral 
and  religious  proficiency/  or  something  besides  these  three? 

35  These  questions  I  shall  examine  in  succession,  with  the  pur- 
pose I  have  mentioned;  and  I  hope  to  be  excused,  if,  in  this 
anxious  undertaking,  I  am  led  to  repeat  what,  either  in 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      55 

these  discourses  or  elsewhere,  I  have  already  put  upon  paper. 
And  first,  of  mere  knowledge,  or  learning,  and  its  connection 
with  intellectual  illumination  or  philosophy. 

I  suppose  the  prima-Jacie^  view  which  the  public  at  large 
would  take  of  a  university,  considering  it  as  a  place  of  edu-  s 
cation,  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  place  for  acquiring  a 
great  deal  of  knowledge  on  a  great  many  subjects.     Memory 
is  one  of  the  first  developed  of  the  mental  faculties;   a  boy's 
business  when  he  goes  to  school  is  to  learn,  that  is,  to  store 
up  things  in  his  memory.     For  some  years  his  intellect  is  lo 
little  more  than  an  instrument  for  taking  in  facts,  or  a  re- 
ceptacle for  storing  them;  he  welcomes  them  as  fast  as  they 
come  to  him;   he  lives  on  what  is  without;   he  has  his  eyes 
ever  about  him;  he  has  a  lively  susceptibility  of  impressions; 
he  imbibes  information  of  every  kind;  and  little  does  he  make  15 
his  own  in  a  true  sense  of  the  word,  living  rather  upon  his 
neighbours    all    around  him.     He    has  opinions,  religious, 
political  and  Hterary,  and,  for  a  boy,  is  very  positive  in  them 
and  sure  about  them;    but  he  gets  them  from  his  school- 
fellows, or  his  masters,  or  his  parents,  as  the  case  may  be.  20 
Such  as  he  is  in  his  other  relations,  such  also  is  he  in  his 
school  exercises;   his  mind  is  observant,  sharp,  ready,  reten- 
tive;   he  is  almost  passive  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 
I  say  this  in  no  disparagement  of  the  idea  of  a  clever  boy. 
Geography,  chronology,  history,  language,  natural  history,  25 
he  heaps  up  the  matter  of  these  studies  as  treasures  for  a 
future  day.     It  is  the  seven  years  of  plenty  with  him:    he 
gathers  in  by  handfuls,  like  the  Egyptians,  without  counting; 
and  though,  as  time  goes  on,  there  is  exercise  for  his  argu- 
mentative powers  in  the  elements  of  mathematics,  and  for  30 
his  taste  in  the  poets  and  orators,  still,  while  at  school,  or 
at  least,  till  quite  the  last  years  of  his  time,  he  acquires, 
and  little  more;    and  when  he  is  leaving  for  the  university, 
he  is  mainly  the  creature  of  foreign  influences  and  circum- 
stances, and  made  up  of  accidents,  homogeneous  or  not,  35 
as  the  case  may  be.     Moreover,  the  moral  habits,  which 
1  Prima-facic:  based  on  one's  first  impression. 


56  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

are  a  boy's  praise,  encourage  and  assist  this  result;  that  is, 
diligence,  assiduity,  regularity,  despatch,  persevering  applica- 
tion; for  these  are  the  direct  conditions  of  acquisition,  and 
naturally  lead  to  it.  Acquirements,  again,  are  emphatically 
5 producible,  and  at  a  moment;  they  are  a  something  to 
show,  both  for  master  and  scholar;  an  audience,  even  though 
ignorant  themselves  of  the  subjects  of  an  examination,  can 
comprehend  when  questions  are  answered  and  when  they  are 
not.     Here  again  is  a  reason  why  mental  culture  is  in  the 

lo  minds  of  men  identified  with  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 

The   same   notion   possesses   the   public   mind,   when    it 

passes  on  from  the  thought  of  a  school  to  that  of  a  university: 

and  with  the  best  of  reasons  so  far  as  this,  that  there  is  no 

true  culture  without  acquirements,  and  that  philosophy  pre- 

15  supposes  knowledge.  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  reading, 
or  a  wide  range  of  information,  to  warrant  us  in  putting 
forth  our  opinions  on  any  serious  subject;  and  without  such 
learning  the  most  original  mind  may  be  able  indeed  to  dazzle, 
to  amuse,  to  refute,  to  perplex,  but  not  to  come  to  any 

2o  useful  result  or  any  trustworthy  conclusion.  There  are 
indeed  persons  who  profess  a  different  view  of  the  matter, 
and  even  act  upon  it.  Every  now  and  then  you  will  find  a 
person  of  vigorous  or  fertile  mind,  who  relies  upon  his  own 
resources,  despises  all  former  authors,  and  gives  the  world, 

25  with  the  utmost  fearlessness,  his  views  upon  religion,  or 
history,  or  any  other  popular  subject.  And  his  works  may 
sell  for  a  while;  he  may  get  a  name  in  his  day;  but  this  will 
be  all.  His  readers  are  sure  to  find  on  the  long  run  that  his 
doctrines  are  mere  theories,  and  not  the  expression  of  facts, 

30  that  they  are  chalf  instead  of  bread,  and  then  his  popularity 
drops  as  suddenly  as  it  rose. 

Knowledge  then  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  expan- 
sion of  mind,  and  the  instrument  of  attaining  to  it;  this  can- 
not be  denied,  it  is  ever  to  be  insisted  on;   I  begin  with  it  as 

35  a  first  principle;  however,  the  very  truth  of  it  carries  men 
too  far,  and  confirms  to  them  the  notion  that  it  is  the  whole 
of  the  matter.     A  narrow  mind  is  thought  to  be  that  which 


KNOWLEDGE    IN    REEATION  TO    LEARNING       17 

contains  little  knowledfrc;  and  an  enlarged  mind,  that  which 
holds  a  great  deal;  and  what  seems  to  put  the  matter  beyond 
dispute  is,  the  fact  of  the  great  number  of  studies  which  are 
pursued  in  a  university,  by  its  very  profession.  Lectures 
are  given  on  every  kind  of  subject;  examinations  are  held;  5 
prizes  awarded.  There  are  moral,  metaphysical,  physical  pro- 
fessors; professors  of  languages,  of  history,  of  mathematics, 
of  experimental  science.  Lists  of  questions  are  published, 
wonderful  for  their  range  and  depth,  variety  and  difficulty; 
treatises  are  written,  which  carry  upon  their  very  face  the  10 
evidence  of  extensive  reading  or  multifarious  information; 
what  then  is  wanting  for  mental  culture  to  a  person  of  large 
reading  and  scientific  attainments?  what  is  grasp  of  mind 
but  acquirement?  where  shall  philosophical  repose  be  found, 
but  in  the  consciousness  and  enjoyment  of  large  intellectual  15 
possessions? 

And  yet  this  notion  is,  I  conceive,  a  mistake,  and  my 
present  business  is  to  show  that  it  is  one,  and  that  the  end  of 
a  liberal  education  is  not  mere  knowledge,  or  knowledge 
considered  in  its  matter;  and  I  shall  best  attain  my  object,  20 
by  actually  setting  down  some  cases,  which  will  be  generally 
granted  to  be  instances  of  the  process  of  enlightenment 
or  enlargement  of  mind,  and  others  which  are  not,  and  thus, 
by  the  comparison,  you  will  be  able  to  judge  for  yourselves, 
gentlemen,  whether  knowledge,  that  is,  acquirement,  is  25 
after  all  the  real  principle  of  the  enlargement  or  whether  that 
principle  is  not  rather  something  beyond  it. 

For  instance,  let  a  person,  whose  experience  has  hitherto 
been  confined  to  the  more  calm  and  unpretending  scenery 
of  these  islands,  whether  here  or  in  England,  go  for  the  first  30 
time  into  parts  where  physical  nature  puts  on  her  wilder 
and  more  awful  forms,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  as  into 
mountainous  districts;  or  let  one,  who  has  ever  lived  in  a 
quiet  village,  go  for  the  first  time  to  a  great  metropolis,-'— 
then  I  suppose  he  will  have  a  sensation  which  perhaps  he  35 
never  had  before.  He  has  a  feeling  not  in  addition  or  increase 
of  former  feelings,  but  of  something  different  in  its  nature. 


58  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

He  will  perhaps  be  borne  forward,  and  find  for  a  time  that 
he  has  lost  his  bearings.  He  has  made  a  certain  progress, 
and  he  has  a  consciousness  of  mental  enlargement;  he  does 
not  stand  where  he  did,  he  has  a  new  centre,  and  a  range  of 
S  thoughts  to  which  he  was  before  a  stranger. 

Again,  the  view  of  the  heavens  which  the  telescope  opens 
upon  us,  if  allowed  to  fill  and  possess  the  mind,  may  almost 
whirl  it  round  and  make  it  dizzy.  It  brings  in  a  flood  of 
ideas,   and   is   rightly   called   an   intellectual   enlargement, 

lo  whatever  is  meant  by  the  term. 

And  so  again,  the  sight  of  beasts  of  prey  and  other  foreign 
animals,  their  strangeness,  the  originality  (if  I  may  use  the 
term)  of  their  forms  and  gestures  and  habits,  and  their 
variety  and  independence  of  each  other,  throw  us  out  of 

15  ourselves  into  another  creation,  and  as  if  under  another 
Creator,  if  I  may  so  express  the  temptation  which  may  come 
on  the  mind.  We  seem  to  have  new  faculties,  or  a  new 
exercise  for  our  faculties,  by  this  addition  to  our  knowledge; 
like  a  prisoner,  who,  having  been  accustomed  to  wear  man- 

20  acles  or  fetters,  suddenly  finds  his  arms  and  legs  free. 

Hence  physical  science  generally,  in  all  its  departments, 
as  bringing  before  us  the  exuberant  riches  and  resources, 
yet  the  orderly  course,  of  the  universe,  elevates  and  excites 
the  student,  and  at  first,  I  may  say,  almost  takes  away  his 

25  breath,  while  in  time  it  exercises  a  tranquillising  influence 
upon  him. 

Again  the  study  of  history  is  said  to  enlarge  and  enlighten 
the  mind,  and  why?  because,  as  I  conceive,  it  gives  it  a 
power  of  judging  of  passing  events  and  of  all  events,  and  a 

30  conscious  superiority  over  them,  which  before  it  did  not 
possess. 

And  in  like  manner,  what  is  called  seeing  the  world,  enter- 
ing into  active  life,  going  into  society,  travelling,  gaining 
acquaintance  with  the  various  classes  of  the  community, 

35  coming  into  contact  with  the  principles  and  modes  of  thought 
of  various  parties,  interests,  and  races,  their  views,  aims, 
habits  and  manners,  their  religious  creeds  and  forms  of  wor- 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING       59 

ship, — gaining  experience  how  various  yet  how  alike  men 
are,  how  low-minded,  how  bad,  how  opposed,  yet  how 
confident  in  their  opinions;  all  this  exerts  a  perceptible 
influence  upon  the  mind,  which  it  is  impossible  to  mistake, 
be  it  good  or  be  it  bad,  and  is  popularly  called  its  enlargement.  5 

And  then  again,  the  first  time  the  mind  comes  across  the 
arguments  and  speculations  of  unbelievers,  and  feels  what  a 
novel  light  they  cast  upon  what  he  has  hitherto  accounted 
sacred;  and  still  more,  if  it  gives  in  to  them  and  embraces 
them,  and  throws  off  as  so  much  prejudice  what  it  has  10 
hitherto  held,  and,  as  if  waking  from  a  dream,  begins  to 
realise  to  its  imagination  that  there  is  now  no  such  thing 
as  law  and  the  transgression  of  law,  that  sin  is  a  phantom, 
and  punishment  a  bugbear,  that  it  is  free  to  sin,  free  to 
enjoy  the  world  and  the  flesh;  and  still  further,  when  it  15 
does  enjoy  them,  and  reflects  that  it  may  think  and  hold 
just  what  it  will,  that  "  the  world  is  all  before  it  where  to 
choose,"  and  what  system  to  build  up  as  its  own  private 
persuasion;  when  this  torrent  of  wilful  thoughts  rushes 
over  and  inundates  it,  who  will  deny  that  the  fruit  of  the  20 
tree  of  knowledge,  or  what  the  mind  takes  for  knowledge, 
has  made  it  one  of  the  gods,  with  a  sense  of  expansion  and 
elevation, — an  intoxication  in  reality,  still,  so  far  as  the 
subjective  state  of  the  mind  goes,  an  illumination?  Hence 
the  fanaticism  of  individuals  or  nations,  who  suddenly  cast  25 
off  their  Maker.  Their  eyes  are  opened;  and,  like  the 
judgment-stricken  king  in  the  tragedy,  they  see  two  suns, 
and  a  magic  universe,  out  of  which  they  look  back  upon 
their  former  state  of  faith  and  innocence  with  a  sort  of 
contempt  and  indignation,  as  if  they  were  then  but  fools,  and  30 
the  dupes  of  imposture. 

On  the  other  hand,  religion  has  its  own  enlargement,  and 
an  enlargement,  not  of  tumult,  but  of  peace.  It  is  often 
remarked  of  uneducated  persons,  who  have  hitherto  thought 
little  of  the  unseen  world,  that,  on  their  turning  to  God,  35 
looking  into  themselves,  regulating  their  hearts,  reforming 
their   conduct,  and   meditating  on   death   and   judgment, 


60  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

heaven  and  hell,  they  seem  to  become,  in  point  of  intellect, 
different  beings  from  what  they  were.  Before,  they  took 
things  as  they  came,  and  thought  no  more  of  one  thing  than 
another.  But  now  every  event  has  a  meaning;  they  have 
S  their  own  estimate  of  whatever  happens  to  them ;  they  are 
mindful  of  times  and  seasons,  and  compare  the  present  with 
the  past;  and  the  world,  no  longer  dull,  monotonous, 
unprofitable,  and  hopeless,  is  a  various  and  complicated 
drama,  with  parts  and  an  object,  and  an  awful  moral. 

lo  Now  from  these  instances,  to  which  many  more  might 
be  added,  it  is  plain,  first,  that  the  communication  of  knowl- 
edge certainly  is  either  a  condition  or  the  means  of  that  sense 
of  enlargement  or  enlightenment,  of  which  at  this  day  we 
hear  so  much  in  certain  quarters:    this  cannot  be  denied; 

15  but  next,  it  is  equally  plain,  that  such  communication  is 
not  the  whole  of  the  process.  The  enlargement  consists, 
not  merely  in  the  passive  reception  into  the  mind  of  a  number 
of  ideas  hitherto  unknown  to  it,  but  in  the  mind's  energetic 
and  simultaneous  action  upon  and  towards  and  among  those 

20  new  ideas,  which  are  rushing  in  upon  it.  It  is  the  action 
of  a  formative  power,  reducing  to  order  and  meaning  the 
matter  of  our  acquirements;  it  is  a  making  the  objects 
of  our  knowledge  subjectively  our  own,  or,  to  use  a  familiar 
word,  it  is  a  digestion  of  what  we  receive,  into  the  sub- 

25  stance  of  our  previous  state  of  thought;  and  without  this 
no  enlargement  is  said  to  follow.  There  is  no  enlargement, 
unless  there  be  a  comparison  of  ideas  one  with  another, 
as  they  come  before  the  mind,  and  a  systematising  of 
them.     We  feel  our   minds  to  be   growing  and  expanding 

T,othen,  when  we  not  only  learn,  but  refer  what  we  learn  to  what 
we  know  already.  It  is  not  the  mere  addition  to  our  knowl- 
edge that  is  the  illumination;  but  the  locomotion,  the  move- 
ment onwards,  of  that  mental  centre,  to  which  both  what  wc 
know,  and   what  we  are   learning,  the   accumulating   mass 

35  of  our  acquirements,  gravitates.  And  therefore  a  truly  great 
intellect,  and  recognised  to  be  such  by  the  common  opinion 
of  mankind,   such  as  the  intellect  of  Aristotle,  or  of  St. 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      61 

Thomas,  or  of  Newton,  or  of  Goethe  (I  purposely  take 
instances  within  and  without  the  Catholic  pale,  when  I 
would  speak  of  the  intellect  as  such),  is  one  which  takes  a. 
connected  view  of  old  and  new,  past  and  present,  far  and 
near,  and  which  has  an  insight  into  the  influence  of  all  5 
these  one  on  another;  without  which  there  is  no  whole  and 
no  centre.  It  possesses  the  knowledge,  not  only  of  things, 
but  also  of  their  mutual  and  true  relations;  knowledge, 
not   merely   considered  as   acquirement   but  as  philosophy. 

Accordingly,  when  this  analytical,  distributive,  harmonis-  10 
ing  process  is  away,  the  mind  experiences  no  enlargement, 
and    is    not    reckoned    as    enlightened    or    comprehensive, 
whatever  it  may  add  to  its  knowledge.     For  instance,  a 
great    memory,  as  I  have    already  said,  does    not  make  a 
philosopher,  any  more  than  a  dictionary  can  be  called  a  15 
grammar.    There  are  men  who  embrace  in  their  minds  a 
vast  multitude  of  ideas,  but  with  httle  sensibility  about 
their   real   relations   towards   each   other.     These   may   be 
antiquarians,  annalists,  naturalists;   they  may  be  learned  in 
the  law;   they  may  be  versed  in  statistics;   they  are  most  20 
useful  in  their  own  place;    I  should  shrink  from  speaking 
disrespectfully   of   them;     still,    there   is   nothing   in    such 
attainments   to   guarantee    the   absence   of   narrowness   of 
mind.     If  they  are  nothing  more  than  well-read  men,  or 
men  of  information,  they  have  not  what  specially  deserves  25 
the  name  of  culture  of  mind,  or  fulfils  the  type  of  liberal 
education. 

In  like  manner,  we  sometimes  fall  in  with  persons  who 
have  seen  much  of  the  world,  and  of  the  men  who,  in  their  day, 
have  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  it,  but  who  generalise  30 
nothing,  and  have  no  observation,  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word.  They  abound  in  information  in  detail,  curious  and 
entertaining,  about  men  and  things;  and,  having  lived  under 
the  influence  of  no  very  clear  or  settled  principles,  religious 
or  political,  they  speak  of  every  one  and  every  thing,  only  as  35 
so  many  phenomena,  which  are  complete  in  themselves,  and 
lead  to  nothing,  not  discussing  them,  or  teaching  any  truth, 


62  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

or  instructing  the  hearer,  but  simply  talking.  No  one  would 
say  that  these  persons,  well  informed  as  they  are,  had  attained 
to  any  great  culture  of  intellect  or  to  philosophy. 
The  case  is  the  same  still  more  strikingly  where  the  persons 
sin  question  are  beyond  dispute  men  of  inferior  powers  and 
deficient  education.  Perhaps  they  have  been  much  in 
foreign  countries,  and  they  receive,  in  ^passive,  otiose,  un- 
fruitful way,  the  various  facts  which  are  forced  upon  them 
there.     Seafaring  men,  for  example,  range  from  one  end  of 

lothe  earth  to  the  other;  but  the  multiplicity  of  external 
objects,  which  they  have  encountered,  forms  no  symmetrical 
and  consistent  picture  upon  their  imagination;  they  see  the 
tapestry  of  human  life,  as  it  were  on  the  wrong  side,  and  it 
tells  no  story.     They  sleep,  and  they  rise  up,  and  they  find 

15  themselves,  now  in  Europe,  now  in  Asia;  they  see  visions  of 
great  cities  and  wild  regions;  they  are  in  the  marts  of  com- 
merce, or  amid  the  islands  of  the  South;  they  gaze  on 
Pompey's  Pillar,  or  on  the  Andes;  and  nothing  which 
meets  them  carries  them  forward  or  backward,  to  any  idea 

20 beyond  itself.  Nothing  has  a  drift  or  relation;  nothing 
has  a  history  or  a  promise.  Every  thing  stands  by  itself, 
and  comes  and  goes  in  its  turn,  like  the  shifting  scenes  of 
a  show,  which  leave  the  spectator  where  he  was.  Perhaps 
you  are  near  such  a  man  on  a  particular  occasion,  and  expect 

25  him  to  be  shocked  or  perplexed  at  something  which  occurs; 
but  one  thing  is  much  the  same  to  him  as  another,  or,  if  he 
is  perplexed,  it  is  as  not  knowing  what  to  say,  whether  it  is 
right  to  admire,  or  to  ridicule  or  to  disapprove,  while  con- 
scious that  some  expression  of  opinion  is  expected  from  him; 

30  for  in  fact  he  has  no  standard  of  judgment  at  all,  and  no 
landmarks  to  guide  him  to  a  conclusion.  Such  is  mere 
acquisition,  and,  I  repeat,  no  one  would  dream  of  calling 
it  philosophy. 

Instances,  such  as  these,  confirm,  by  the  contrast,  the  con- 

35  elusion  I  have  already  drawn  from  those  which  preceded 
them.  That  only  is  true  enlargement  of  mind  which  is  the 
power  of  viewing  many  things  at  once  as  one  whole,  of 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      63    ' 

referring  them  severally  to  their  true  place  in  the  universal 
system,  of  understanding  their  respective  values,  and  deter- 
mining  their  mutual   dependence.     Thus  is   that  form  of 
universal  knowledge,  of  which  I  have  on  a  former  occasion  • 
spoken,  set  up  in  the  individual  intellect,  and  constitutes  its  s 
perfection.     Possessed  of  this  real  illumination,  the  mind 
never  views  any  part  of  the  extended  subject-matter  of 
knowledge  without  recollecting  that  it  is  but  a  part,  or  with- 
out the  associations  which  spring  from  this  recollection.     It 
makes   everything   in   some   sort  lead   to  everything  else;io 
it  would  communicate  the  image  of  the  whole  to  every  sep- 
arate portion,  till  that  whole  becomes  in  imagination  like 
a  spirit,   everywhere  pervading  and  penetrating  its  com- 
ponent parts,  and  giving  them  one  definite  meaning.     Just 
as  our  bodily  organs,  when  mentioned,  recall  their  function  15 
in  the  body,  as  the  word  "  creation  "  suggests  the  Creator, 
and  "  subjects  "  a  sovereign,  so,  in  the  mind  of  the  philosopher 
as  we  are  abstractedly  conceiving  of  him,  the  elements  of 
the  physical  and  moral  world,  sciences,  arts,  pursuits,  ranks, 
ofl&ces,  events,  opinions,  individualities,  are  all  viewed  as  one  20 
with  correlative  functions,  and  as  gradually  by  successive 
combinations  converging,  one  and  all,  to  the  true  centre. 

To  have  even  a  portion  of  this  illuminative  reason  and  true 
philosophy  is  the  highest  state  to  which  nature  can  aspire, 
in  the  way  of  intellect;  it  puts  the  mind  above  the  influences  25 
of  chance  and  necessity,  above  anxiety,  suspense,  unsettle- 
ment,  and    superstition,  which  is    the    lot    of  the  many. 
Men,  whose  minds  are  possessed  with  some  one  object,  take 
exaggerated  views  of  its  importance,  are  feverish  in  the 
pursuit  of  it,  make  it  the  measure  of  things  which  are  utterly  30 
foreign  to  it,  and  are  startled  and  despond  if  it  happens  to 
fail  them.     They  are  ever  in  alarm  or  in  transport.     Those 
on  the  other  hand  who  have  no  object  or  principle  whatever 
to  hold  by,  lose  their  way  every  step  they  take.     They  aTe 
thrown  out,  and  do  not  know  what  to  think  or  say,  at  every  35 
fresh  juncture;  they  have  no  view  of  persons,  or  occurrences, 
or  facts,  which  come  suddenly  upon  them,  and  they  hang 


64  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

upon  the  opinion  of  others  for  want  of  internal  resources. 
But  the  intellect,  which  has  been  discipHned  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  its  powers,  which  knows,  and  thinks  while  it  knows, 
which  has  learned  to  leaven  the  dense  mass  of  facts  and  events 
Swith  the  elastic  force  of  reason,  such  an  intellect  cannot  be 
partial,  cannot  be  exclusive,  cannot  be  impetuous,  cannot  be 
at  a  loss,  cannot  but  be  patient,  collected,  and  majestically 
calm,  because  it  discerns  the  end  in  every  beginning,  the  origin 
in  every  end,  the  law  in  every  interruption,  the  limit  in  each 
lo delay;  because  it  ever  knows  where  it  stands,  and  how  its 
path  lies  from  one  point  to  another.  It  is  the  TCTpaywvo?  ^ 
of  the  Peripatetic,  and  has  the  nil  admirari  ^  of  the  Stoic, — 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
Atque  metus  omnes,  et  inexorabile  fatum 
15  Subjecit  pedibus,  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari.' 

There  are  men  who,  when  in  difficulties,  originate  at  the 
moment  vast  ideas  or  dazzling  projects;  who,  under  the 
influence  of  excitement,  are  able  to  cast  a  light,  almost  as 
if  from  inspiration,  on  a  subject  or  course  of  action  which 

20 comes  before  them;  who  have  a  sudden  presence  of  mind 
equal  to  any  emergency,  rising  with  the  occasion,  and  an 
undaunted  magnanimous  bearing,  and  an  energy  and  keen- 
ness which  is  but  made  intense  by  opposition.  This  is 
genius,  this  is  heroism;    it  is  the  exhibition  of  a  natural 

25  gift,  which  no  culture  can  teach,  at  which  no  institution  can 
aim:  here,  on  the  contrary,  we  are  concerned,  not  with 
mere  nature,  but  with  training  and  teaching.  That  per- 
fection of  the  intellect,  which  is  the  result  of  education,  and 
its  beau  ideal,  to  be  imparted  to  individuals  in  their  respective 

30  measures,  is  the  clear,  calm,  accurate  vision  and  comprehen- 
sion of  all  things,  as  far  as  the  finite  mind  can  embrace  them, 
each  in  its  place,  and  with  its  own  characteristics  upon  it. 

*  Four-square . 

*  To  be  mov^ed  by  nothing. 

'  Happy  is  he  who  has  come  to  know  the  sequences  of  things,  and  is 
thus  above  all  fear  and  the  dread  march  of  fate  and  the  roar  of  greedy 
Acheron. 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      65 

It  is  almost  prophetic  from  its  knowledge  of  history;  it  is 
almost  heart-searching  from  its  knowledge  of  human  nature; 
it  has  almost  supernatural  charity  from  its  freedom  from 
littleness  and  prejudice;  it  has  almost  the  repose  of  faith,  ■ 
because  nothing  can  startle  it;  it  has  almost  the  beauty  5 
and  harmony  of  heavenly  contemplation,  so  intimate  is  it 
with  the  eternal  order  of  things  and  the  music  of  the  spheres. 

And  now,  if  I  may  take  for  granted  that  the  true  and  ade- 
quate end  of  intellectual  training  and  of  a  university  is  not 
learning  or  acquirement,  but  rather,  is  thought  or  reason  exer-  lo 
cised  upon  knowledge,  or  what  may  be  called  philosophy,  I 
shall  be  in  a  position  to  explain  the  various  mistakes  which  at 
the  present  day  beset  the  subject  of  university  education. 

I    say    then,   if   we    would    improve    the   intellect,   first 
of  all,  we  must  ascend;    we  cannot  gain   real   knowledge  15 
on  a  level;   we  must  generalise,  we  must  reduce  to  method, 
we  must  have  a  grasp  of  principles,  and  group  and  shape 
our  acquisitions  by  means  of  them.     It  matters  not  whether 
our  field  of  operation  be  wide  or  limited;   in  every  case,  to 
command  it,  is  to  mount  above  it.     Who  has  not  felt  the  20 
irritation  of  mind  and  impatience  created  by  a  deep,  rich 
country,  visited  for  the  first  time,  with  winding  lanes,  and 
high  hedges,  and  green  steeps,  and  tangled  woods,  and  every 
thing  smiling  indeed,  but  in  a  maze?     The  same  feeling  comes 
upon  us  in  a  strange  city,  when  we  have  no  map  of  its  streets.  25 
Hence  you  hear  of  practised  travellers,  when  they  first  come 
into  a  place,  mounting  some  high  hill  or  church  tower,  by  way 
of  reconnoitring  its  neighbourhood.    In  Hke  manner,  you  must 
be  above  your  knowledge,  not  under  it,  or  it  will  oppress  you; 
and  the  more  you  have  of  it,  the  greater  will  be  the  load.  30 
The  learning  of  a  Salmasius  or  a  Burman,  unless  you  are  its 
master,  will  be  your  tyrant.     Imperat  ant  servit;  ^    if  you  can 
wield  it  with  a  strong  arm,  it  is  a  great  w  eapon ;  otherwise, 

Vis  consili  expers 

Mole  ruit  sua.^  35 

*  It  rules  or  it  serves. 

*  Brute  force  without  intelligence  falls  by  its  own  weight. 


66  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

You  will  be  overwhelmed,  like  Tarpeia,  by  the  heavy  wealth 
which  you  have  exacted  from  tributary  generations. 

Instances  abound;  there  are  authors  who  are  as  pointless 
as  they  are  inexhaustible  in  their  literary  resources.  They 
5  measure  knowledge  by  bulk,  as  it  Hes  in  the  rude  block, 
without  symmetry,  without  design.  How  many  commenta- 
tors are  there  on  the  classics,  how  many  on  Holy  Scripture, 
from  whom  we  rise  up,  wondering  at  the  learning  which  has 
passed  before  us,  and  wondering  why  it  passed !     How  many 

lo  writers  are  there  of  Ecclesiastical  history,  such  as  Mosheim 
or  Du  Pin,  who,  breaking  up  their  subject  into  details, 
destroy  its  life,  and  defraud  us  of  the  whole  by  their  anxiety 
about  the  parts!  The  sermons,  again,  of  the  English  divines 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  how  often  are  they  mere  reper- 

istories  of  miscellaneous  and  officious  learning!  Of  course 
Catholics  also  may  read  without  thinking;  and  in  their  case, 
equally  as  with  Protestants,  it  holds  good,  that  such  knowl- 
edge is  unworthy  of  the  name,  knowledge  which  they  have  not 
thought  through,  and  thought  out.     Such  readers  are  only 

20 possessed  by  their  knowledge,  not  possessed  of  it;  nay,  in 
matter  of  fact  they  are  often  even  carried  away  by  it,  with- 
out any  volition  of  their  own.  Recollect,  the  memory  can 
tyrannise,  as  well  as  the  imagination.  Derangement,  I 
believe,  has  been  considered  as  a  loss  of  control  over  the 

25  sequence  of  ideas.  The  mind,  once  set  in  motion,  is  hence- 
forth deprived  of  the  power  of  initiation,  and  becomes  the 
victim  of  a  train  of  associations,  one  thought  suggesting 
another,  in  the  way  of  cause  and  effect,  as  if  by  a  mechanical 
process,  or  some  physical  necessity.     No  one,  who  has  had 

30  experience  of  men  of  studious  habits,  but  must  recognise 
the  existence  of  a  parallel  phenomenon  in  the  case  of  those 
who  have  over-stimulated  the  memory.  In  such  persons 
reason  acts  almost  as  feebly  and  as  impotently  as  in  the 
madman;    once   fairly  started    on    any  subject   whatever, 

35  they  have  no  power  of  self-control;  they  passively  endure 
the  succession  of  impulses  which  are  evolved  out  of  the 
original  exciting  cause;    they  are  passed  on  from  one  idea 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      67 

to  another  and  go  steadily  forward,  plodding  along  one  line 
of  thought  in  spite  of  the  amplest  concessions  of  the  hearer, 
or  wandering  from  it  in  endless  digression  in  spite  of  his 
remonstrances.  Now,  if,  as  is  very  certain,  no  one  would" 
envy  the  madman  the  glow  and  originality  of  his  conceptions,  s 
why  must  we  extol  the  cultivation  of  that  intellect  which 
is  the  prey,  not  indeed  of  barren  fancies  but  of  barren  facts, 
of  random  intrusions  from  without,  though  not  of  morbid 
imaginations  from  within?  And  in  thus  speaking,  I  am  not 
denying  that  a  strong  and  ready  memory  is  in  itself  a  real  lo 
treasure;  I  am  not  disparaging  a  well-stored  mind,  though 
it  be  nothing  besides,  provided  it  be  sober,  any  more  than 
I  would  despise  a  bookseller's  shop: — it  is  of  great  value  to 
others,  even  when  not  so  to  the  owner.  Nor  am  I  banishing, 
far  from  it,  the  possessors  of  deep  and  multifarious  learning  15 
from  my  ideal  University;  they  adorn  it  in  the  eyes  of  men; 
I  do  but  say  that  they  constitute  no  type  of  the  results  at 
which  it  aims;  that  it  is  no  great  gain  to  the  intellect  to  have 
enlarged  the  memory  at  the  expense  of  faculties  which  are 
indisputably  higher.  20 

Nor  indeed  am  I  supposing  that  there  is  any  great  danger, 
at  least  in  this  day,  of  over-education;  the  danger  is  on  the 
other  side.  I  will  tell  you,  gentlemen,  what  has  been  the 
practical  error  of  the  last  twenty  years, — not  to  load  the 
memory  of  the  student  with  a  mass  of  undigested  knowledge,  25 
but  to  force  upon  him  so  much  that  he  has  rejected  all. 
It  has  been  the  error  of  distracting  and  enfeebling  the  mind 
by  an  unmeaning  profusion  of  subjects;  of  implying  that  a 
smattering  in  a  dozen  branches  of  study  is  not  shallowness, 
which  it  really  is,  but  enlargement,  which  it  is  not;  of  con- 30 
sidering  an  acquaintance  with  the  learned  names  of  things 
and  persons  and  the  possession  of  clever  duodecimos,  and 
attendance  on  eloquent  lecturers,  and  membership  with 
scientific  institutions,  and  the  sight  of  the  experiments  ^of 
a  platform  and  the  specimens  of  a  museum,  that  all  this  was  35 
not  dissipation  of  mind,  but  progress.  All  things  now  are 
to  be  learned  at  once,  not  first  one  thing,  then  another, 


68  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

not  one  well,  but  many  badly.  Learning  is  to  be  without 
exertion,  without  attention,  without  toil;  without  ground- 
ing, without  advance,  without  finishing.  There  is  to  be 
nothing  individual  in  it;  and  this,  forsooth,  is  the  wonder 
S  of  the  age.  What  the  steam  engine  does  with  matter, 
the  printing  press  is  to  do  with  the  mind ;  it  is  to  act  mechan- 
ically, and  the  population  is  to  be  passively,  almost  uncon- 
sciously enlightened,  by  the  mere  multiplication  and  dis- 
semination  of   volumes.     Whether   it   be   the   school   boy, 

loor  the  school  girl,  or  the  youth  at  college,  or  the  mechanic 
in  the  town,  or  the  politician  in  the  senate,  all  have  been  the 
victims  in  one  way  or  other  of  this  most  preposterous  and 
pernicious  of  delusions.  Wise  men  have  lifted  up  their 
voices  in  vain;    and  at  length,  lest  their  own  institutions 

15  should  be  outshone  and  should  disappear  in  the  folly  of  the 
hour,  they  have  been  obliged,  as  far  as  they  could  with  a 
good  conscience,  to  humour  a  spirit  which  they  could  not 
withstand,  and  make  temporising  concessions  at  which 
they  could  not  but  inwardly  smile. 

20  It  must  not  be  supposed  that,  because  I  so  speak,  there- 
fore I  have  some  sort  of  fear  of  the  education  of  the  people: 
on  the  contrary,  the  more  education  they  have,  the  better, 
so  that  it  is  really  education.  Nor  am  I  an  enemy  to  the 
cheap  publication  of  scientific  and  literary  works,   which 

25  is  now  in  vogue:  on  the  contrary,  I  consider  it  a  great  advan- 
tage, convenience,  and  gain;  th?t  is,  to  those  to  whom 
education  has  given  a  capacity  for  using  them.  Further, 
I  consider  such  innocent  recreations  as  science  and  Hterature 
are  able  to  furnish  will  be  a  very  fit  occupation  of  the  thoughts 

30  and  the  leisure  of  young  persons,  and  may  be  made  the  means 
of  keeping  them  from  bad  employments  and  bad  companions. 
Moreover,  as  to  that  superficial  acquaintance  with  chem- 
istry, and  geology,  and  astronomy,  and  political  economy, 
and  modern  history,   and  biography,   and  other  branches 

35  of  knowledge,  which  periodical  literature  and  occasional 
lectures  and  scientific  institutions  diffuse  through  the 
community,  I  think  it  a  graceful  accomplishment,  and  a 


KNOWLEDGE  IN   RELATION  TO   LEARNING      69 

suitable,  nay,  in  this  day  a  necessary  accomplishment,  in 
the  case  of  educated  men.     Nor,  lastly,  am  I  disparaging  or 
discouraging  the  thorough    acquisition  of  any  one  of  these, 
studies,  or  denying  that,  as  far  as  it  goes,  such  thorough 
acquisition  is  a  real  education  of  the  mind.     All  I  say  is,   s 
call  things  by  their  right  names,  and  do  not  confuse  to- 
gether ideas  which  are  essentially  different.     A  thorough 
knowledge  of  one  science  and  a  superficial  acquaintance 
with  many,  are  not  the  same  thing;   a  smattering  of  a  hun- 
dred things  or  a  memory  for  detail,  is  not  a  philosophical  lo 
or   comprehensive   view.     Recreations   are   not   education; 
accomplishments  are  not  education.     Do  not  say,  the  peo- 
ple   must    be  educated,   when,  after   all,  you    only  mean 
amused,  refreshed,  soothed,  put  into  good  spirits  and  good 
humour,  or  kept  from  vicious  excesses.     I  do  not  say  that  15 
such  amusements,  such  occupations  of  mind,  are  not  a  great 
gain;    but  they  are  not  education.     You  may  as  well  call 
drawing  and  fencing  education  as  a  general  knowledge  of 
botany  or  conchology.     Stuffing  birds  or  playing  stringed 
instruments  is  an  elegant  pastime,  and  a  resource  to  the  idle,  20 
but  it  is  not  education;    it  does  not  form  or  cultivate  the 
intellect.     Education  is  a  high  word;    it  is  the  preparation 
for  knowledge,   and  it  is   the  imparting  of  knowledge  in 
proportion    to    that   preparation.     We   require   intellectual 
eyes  to  know  withal,  as  bodily  eyes  for  sight.     We  need  25 
both  objects  and  organs  intellectual;    we  cannot  gain  them 
without  setting  about  it;   we  cannot  gain  them  in  our  sleep, 
or   by   haphazard.     The   best   telescope   does  not  dispense 
with  eyes;   the  printing  press  or  the  lecture  room  will  assist 
us  greatly,  but  we  must  be  true  to  ourselves,  we  must  be  30 
parties  in  the  work.     A  university  is,  according  to  the  usual 
designation,  an  alma  mater,  knowing  her  children  one  by 
one,  not  a  foundry,  or  a  mint,  or  a  treadmill. 

I  protest  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  if  I  had  to  choose  between 
a  so-called  university,  which  dispensed  with  residence  and  35 
tutorial  superintendence,  and  gave  its  degrees  to  any  per- 
son who  passed  an  examination  in  a  wide  range  of  subjects. 


70  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

and  a  university  which  had  no  professors  or  examinations 
at  all,  but  merely  brought  a  number  of  young  men  together 
for  three  or  four  years,  and  then  sent  them  away  as  the 
University  of  Oxford  is  said  to  have  done  some  sixty  years 
5  since,  if  I  were  asked  which  of  these  two  methods  was  the 
better  discipline  of  the  intellect, — mind,  I  do  not  say  which 
is  morally  the  better,  for  it  is  plain  that  compulsory  study 
must  be  a  good  and  idleness  an  intolerable  mischief, — but  if 
I  must  determine  which  of  the  two  courses  was  the  more  suc- 

locessful  in  training,  moulding,  enlarging  the  mind,  which 
sent  out  men  the  more  fitted  for  their  secular  duties,  which 
produced  better  public  men,  men  of  the  world,  men  whose 
names  would  descend  to  posterity,  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  giving  the  preference  to  that  university  which  did  noth- 

i5ing,  over  that  which  exacted  of  its  members  an  acquaintance 
with  every  science  under  the  sun.  And,  paradox  as  this 
may  seem,  still  if  results  be  the  test  of  systems,  the  influence 
of  the  public  schools  and  colleges  of  England,  in  the  course 
of  the  last  century,  at  least  will  bear  out  one  side  of  the 

20  contrast  as  I  have  drawn  it.  What  would  come,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  the  ideal  systems  of  education  which  have  fas- 
cinated the  imagination  of  this  age,  could  they  ever  take 
effect,  and  whether  they  would  not  produce  a  generation 
frivolous,    narrow-minded,    and    resourceless,    intellectually 

25  considered,  is  a  fair  subject  for  debate;  but  so  far  is  certain, 
that  the  universities  and  scholastic  establishments,  to  which 
I  refer,  and  which  did  little  more  than  bring  together  first 
boys  and  then  youths  in  large  numbers,  these  institutions, 
with  miserable  deformities  on  the  side  of  morals,  with  a 

30  hollow  profession  of  Christianity,  and  a  heathen  code  of 
ethics, — I  say,  at  least  they  can  boast  of  a  succession  of 
heroes  and  statesmen,  of  literary  men  and  philosophers, 
of  men  conspicuous  for  great  natural  virtues,  for  habits 
of  business,  for  knowledge  of  life,  for  practical  judgment, 

35  for  cultivated  tastes,  for  accomplishments,  who  have  made 
England  what  it  is, — able  to  subdue  the  earth,  able  to 
domineer  over  Catholics. 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING      71 

How  is  this  to  be  explained?  I  suppose  as  follows:  When 
a  multitude  of  young  men,  keen,  open-hearted,  sympathetic, 
and  observant,  as  young  men  are,  come  together  and  freely 
mix  with  each  other,  they  are  sure  to  learn  one  from  another, 
even  if  there  be  no  one  to  teach  them;  the  conversation  5 
of  all  is  a  series  of  lectures  to  each,  and  they  gain  for  them- 
selves new  ideas  and  views,  fresh  matter  of  thought,  and 
distinct  principles  for  judging  and  acting,  day  by  day. 
An  infant  has  to  learn  the  meaning  of  the  information 
which  its  senses  convey  to  it,  and  this  seems  to  be  its  em- 10 
ployment.  It  fancies  all  that  the  eye  presents  to  it  to  be 
close  to  it,  till  it  actually  learns  the  contrary,  and  thus  by 
practice  does  it  ascertain  the  relations  and  uses  of  those 
first  elements  of  knowledge  which  are  necessary  for  its 
animal  existence.  A  parallel  teaching  is  necessary  for  our  15 
social  being,  and  it  is  secured  by  a  large  school  or  a  college; 
and  this  effect  may  be  fairly  called  in  its  own  department 
an  enlargement  of  mind.  It  is  seeing  the  world  on  a  small 
field  with  little  trouble;  for  the  pupils  or  students  come 
from  very  different  places,  and  with  widely  different  notions,  20 
and  there  is  much  to  generalise,  much  to  adjust,  much  to 
eliminate,  there  are  inter-relations  to  be  defined,  and  conven- 
tional rules  to  be  established,  in  the  process,  by  which  the 
whole  assemblage  is  moulded  together,  and  gains  one  tone 
and  one  character.  25 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood,  I  repeat  it,  that  I  am  not 
taking  into  account  moral  or  religious  considerations;  I  am 
but  saying  that  that  youthful  community  will  constitute 
a  whole,  it  will  embody  a  specific  idea,  it  will  represent  a 
doctrine,  it  will  administer  a  code  of  conduct,  and  it  will  30 
furnish  principles  of  thought  and  action.  It  will  give 
birth  to  a  living  teaching,  which  in  course  of  time  will  take 
the  shape  of  a  self-perpetuating  tradition,  or  a  genius  loci} 
as  it  is  sometimes  called;  which  haunts  the  home  where  it 
has  been  born,  and  which  imbues  and  forms  more  or  less,  35 
and  one  by  one,  every  individual  who  is  successively  brought 
^  Genius  loci:  spirit  of  the  place. 


72  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

under  its  shadow.  Thus  it  is  that,  independent  of  direct 
instruction  on  the  part  of  superiors,  there  is  a  sort  of  self- 
education  in  the  academic  institutions  of  Protestant  Eng- 
land; a  characteristic  tone  of  thought,  a  recognised  standard 
S  of  judgment  is  found  in  them,  which,  as  developed  in  the 
individual  who  is  submitted  to  it,  becomes  a  twofold  source 
of  strength  to  him,  both  from  the  distinct  stamp  it  impresses 
on  his  mind,  and  from  the  bond  of  union  which  it  creates 
between  him  and  others, — effects  which  are  shared  by  the 

lo  authorities  of  the  place,  for  they  themselves  have  been  edu- 
cated in  it,  and  at  all  times  are  exposed  to  the  influence 
of  its  ethical  atmosphere.  Here  then  is  a  real  teaching, 
whatever  be  its  standards  and  principles,  true  or  false; 
and  it  at  least  tends  towards  cultivation  of  the  intellect; 

IS  it  at  least  recognises  that  knowledge  is  something  more  than 
a  sort  of  passive  reception  of  scraps  and  details;  it  is  a  some- 
thing, and  it  does  a  something,  which  never  will  issue  from 
the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  a  set  of  teachers  with  no 
mutual   sympathies  and  no  intercommunion,   of  a  set  of 

20  examiners  with  no  opinions  which  they  dare  profess,  and 
with  no  common  principles,  who  are  teaching  or  questioning 
a  set  of  youths  who  do  not  know  them,  and  do  not  know 
each  other,  on  a  large  number  of  subjects,  different  in  kind, 
and  connected  by  no  wide  philosophy,  three   times  a  week, 

25  or  three  times  a  year,  or  once  in  three  years,  in  chill  lecture- 
rooms  or  on  a  pompous  anniversary. 

Nay,  self-education  in  any  shape,  in  the  most  restricted 
sense,  is  preferable  to  a  system  of  teaching  which,  professing 
so  much,  really  does  so  little  for  the  mind.     Shut  your 

30  college  gates  against  the  votary  of  knowledge,  throw  him 
back  upon  the  searchings  and  the  efforts  of  his  own  mind; 
he  will  gain  by  being  spared  an  entrance  into  your  babel. 
Few  indeed  there  are  who  can  dispense  with  the  stimulus 
and  support  of  instructors,  or  will  do  anything  at  all,  if 

^5  left  to  themselves.  And  fewer  still  (though  such  great 
minds  are  to  be  found),  who  will  not,  from  such  unassisted 
attempts,  contract  a  self-reliance  and  a  self-esteem,  which 


KNOWLEDGE  IN  RELATION  TO  LEARNING       73 

are  not  only  moral  evils,  but  serious  hindrances  to  the  attain- 
ment of  truth.  And  next  to  none,  perhaps,  or  none,  who  will 
not  be  reminded  from  time  to  time  of  the  disadvantage  under 
which  they  lie,  by  their  imperfect  grounding,  by  the  breaks, 
deficiencies,  and  irregularities  of  their  knowledge,  by  the  5 
eccentricity  of  opinion  and  the  confusion  of  principle  which 
they  exhibit.  They  will  be  too  often  ignorant  of  what  every 
one  knows  and  takes  for  granted,  of  that  multitude  of  small 
truths  which  fall  upon  the  mind  like  dust,  impalpable  and 
ever  accumulating;  they  may  be  unable  to  converse,  they  10 
may  argue  perversely,  they  may  pride  themselves  on  their 
worst  paradoxes  or  their  grossest  truisms,  they  may  be  full 
of  their  own  mode  of  viewing  things,  unwilling  to  be  put 
out  of  their  way,  slow  to  enter  into  the  minds  of  others; — 
but,  with  these  and  whatever  other  liabilities  upon  their  15 
heads,  they  are  likely  to  have  more  thought,  more  mind, 
more  philosophy,  more  true  enlargement,  than  those  earnest 
but  ill-used  persons  who  are  forced  to  load  their  minds 
with  a  score  of  subjects  against  an  examination,  who  have 
too  much  on  their  hands  to  indulge  themselves  in  thinking  20 
or  investigation,  who  devour  premise  and  conclusion  together 
with  indiscriminate  greediness,  who  hold  whole  sciences  on 
faith,  and  commit  demonstrations  to  memory,  and  who  too 
often,  as  might  be  expected,  when  their  period  of  education 
is  passed,  throw  up  all  they  have  learned  in  disgust,  having  25 
gained  nothing  really  by  their  anxious  labours,  except  per- 
haps the  habit  of  application. 

Yet  such  is  the  better  specimen  of  the  fruit  of  that  ambi- 
tious system  which  has  of  late  years  been  making  way  among 
us:  for  its  result  on  ordinary  minds,  and  on  the  common, 50 
run  of  students,  is  less  satisfactory  still;  they  leave  their 
place  of  education  simply  dissipated  and  relaxed  by  the 
multiplicity  of  subjects,  which  they  have  never  really 
mastered,  and  so  shallow  as  not  even  to  know  their  shall®w- 
ness.  How  much  better,  I  say,  it  is  for  the  active  and  ,3^ 
thoughtful  intellect,  where  such  is  to  be  found,  to  eschew 
the  college  and  the  university  altogether,  than  to  submit 


74  JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

to  a  drudgery  so  ignoble,  a  mockery  so  contumelious !  How 
much  more  profitable  for  the  independent  mind,  after  the 
mere  rudiments  of  education,  to  range  through  a  library  at 
random,  taking  down  books  as  they  meet  him,  and  pursuing 
5  the  trains  of  thought  which  his  mother  wit  suggests!  How 
much  healthier  to  wander  into  the  fields,  and  there  with 
the  exiled  prince  to  find  "  tongues  in  the  trees,  books  in  the 
running  brooks! "  How  much  more  genuine  an  education 
is  that  of  the  poor  boy  in  the  poem  ^ — a  poem,  whether 
loin  conception  or  execution,  one  of  the  most  touching  in 
our  language — who,  not  in  the  wide  world,  but  ranging  day 
by  day  around  his  widowed  mother's  home,  "  a  dextrous 
gleaner  "  in  a  narrow  field  and  with  only  such  slender  outfit 

as  the  village  school  and  books  a  few 
15  Supplied, 

contrived  from  the  beach,  and  the  quay,  and  the  fisher''s 
boat,  and  the  inn's  fireside,  and  the  tradesman's  shop, 
and  the  shepherd's  walk,  and  the  smuggler's  hut,  and  the 
mossy  moor,  and  the  screaming  gulls,  and  the  restless  waves, 
20  to  fashion  for  himself  a  philosophy  and  a  poetry  of  his  own ! 
But  in  a  large  subject,  I  am  exceeding  my  necessary  limits. 
Gentlemen,  I  must  conclude  abruptly;  and  postpone  any 
summing  up  of  my  argument,  should  that  be  necessary,  to 
another  day. 

1  Crabbe's  Tales  of  the  Hall.  This  poem,  let  me  say,  I  read  on  its 
first  publication,  above  thirty  years  ago,  with  extreme  delight,  and  have 
never  lost  my  love  of  it;  and  on  taking  it  up  lately,  found  I  was  even 
more  touched  by  it  than  heretofore.  A  work  which  can  please  in  youth 
and  age,  seems  to  fulfil  (in  logical  language)  the  accidental  definition 
of  a  classic.  (A  further  course  of  twenty  years  has  passed,  and  I  bear 
the  same  witness  in  favour  of  this  poem.) 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  i 

Matthew  Arnold 

Practical  people  talk  with  a  smile  of  Plato  and  of  his 
absolute  ideas;  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  Plato's 
ideas  do  often  seem  unpractical  and  impracticable,  and 
especially  when  one  views  them  in  connection  with  the  life 
of  a  great  workaday  world  like  the  United  States.  The  5 
necessary  staple  of  the  life  of  such  a  world  Plato  regards 
with  disdain;  handicraft  and  trade  and  the  working  pro- 
fessions he  regards  with  disdain;  but  what  becomes  of  the 
life  of  an  industrial  modern  community  if  you  take  handi- 
craft and  trade  and  the  working  professions  out  of  it?  The  10 
base  mechanic  arts  and  handicrafts,  says  Plato,  bring  about 
a  natural  weakness  in  the  principle  of  excellence  in  a  man, 
so  that  he  cannot  govern  the  ignoble  growths  in  him,  but 
nurses  them,  and  cannot  understand  fostering  any  other. 
Those  who  exercise  such  arts  and  trades,  as  they  have  their  15 
bodies,  he  says,  marred  by  their  vulgar  businesses,  so  they 
have  their  souls,  too,  bowed  and  broken  by  them.  And 
if  one  of  these  uncomely  people  has  a  mind  to  seek  self- 
culture  and  philosophy,  Plato  compares  him  to  a  bald  little 
tinker,  who  has  scraped  together  money,  and  has  got  his  20 
release  from  service,  and  has  had  a  bath,  and  bought  a  new 
coat,  and  is  rigged  out  like  a  bridegroom  about  to  marry 
the  daughter  of  his  master  who  has  fallen  into  poor  and 
helpless  estate. 

Nor  do  the  working  professions  fare  any  better  than  trade  25 
at  the  hands  of  Plato.     He  draws  for  us  an  inimitable  picture 
of  the  working  lawyer,  and  of  his  life  of  bondage;   he  shows 

1  From  "  Discourses  in  America,"  1885. 

75 


76  MATTHEW   ARNOLD 

how  this  bondage  from  his  youth  up  has  stunted  and  warped 
him,  and  made  him  small  and  crooked  of  soul,  encompassing 
him  with  difHculties  which  he  is  not  man  enough  to  rely  on 
justice  and  truth  as  means  to  encounter,  but  has  recourse, 

5  for  help  out  of  them,  to  falsehood  and  wrong.     And  so, 

says  Plato,  this  poor  creature  is  bent  and  broken,  and  grows 

up  from  boy  to  man  without  a  particle  of  soundness  in  him, 

although  exceedingly  smart  and  clever  in  his  own  esteem. 

One  cannot  refuse  to  admire  the  artist  who  draws  these 

lo pictures.  But  we  say  to  ourselves  that  his  ideas  show  the 
influence  of  a  primitive  and  obsolete  order  of  things,  when  the 
warrior  caste  and  the  priestly  caste  were  alone  in  honour, 
and  the  humble  work  of  the  world  was  done  by  slaves.  We 
have  now  changed  all  that;    the  modern  majority  consists 

15  in  work,  as  Emerson  declares;  and  in  work,  we  may  add, 
principally  of  such  plain  and  dusty  kind  as  the  work  of 
cultivators  of  the  ground,  handicraftsmen,  men  of  trade 
and  business,  men  of  the  working  professions.  Above  all 
is  this  true  in  a  great  industrious  community  such  as  that  of 

20  the  United  States. 

Now  education,  many  people  go  on  to  say,  is  still  mainly 
governed  by  the  ideas  of  men  like  Plato,  who  lived  when  the 
warrior  caste  and  the  priestly  or  philosophical  class  were 
alone  in  honour,  and  the  really  useful  part  of  the  community 

25  were  slaves.  It  is  an  education  fitted  for  persons  of  leisure 
in  such  a  community.  This  education  passed  from  Greece 
and  Rome  to  the  feudal  communities  of  Europe,  where 
also  the  warrior  caste  and  the  priestly  caste  were  alone  held 
in  honour,  and  where  the  really  useful  and  working  part  of 

30  the  community,  though  not  nominally  slaves  as  in  the  pagan 
world,  were  practically  not  much  better  off  than  slaves,  and 
not  more  seriously  regarded.  And  how  absurd  it  is,  people 
end  by  saying,  to  inflict  this  education  upon  an  industrious 
modern   community,   where   very   few   indeed   are   persons 

35  of  leisure,  and  the  mass  to  be  considered  has  not  leisure, 
but  is  bound,  for  its  own  great  good,  and  for  the  great  good  of 
the  world  at  large,  to  plain  labour  and  to  industrial  pursuits, 


LITERATURE  AND   SCIENCE  77 

and  the  education  in  question  tends  necessarily  to  make 
men  dissatisfied  with  these  pursuits  and  unfitted  for 
them! 

That  is  what  is  said.  So  far  I  must  defend  Plato,  as  to 
plead  that  his  view  of  education  and  studies  is  in  the  general,  s 
as  it  seems  to  me,  sound  enough,  and  fitted  for  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  whatever  their  pursuits  may  be.  "An 
intelligent  man,"  says  Plato,  "  will  prize  those  studies  which 
result  in  his  soul  getting  soberness,  righteousness,  and  wisdom, 
and  will  less  value  the  others."  I  cannot  consider  that  a  lo 
bad  description  of  the  aim  of  education,  and  of  the  motives 
which  should  govern  us  in  the  choice  of  studies,  whether  we 
are  preparing  ourselves  for  a  hereditary  seat  in  the  English 
House  of  Lords  or  for  the  pork  trade  in  Chicago. 

Still  I  admit  that  Plato's  world  was  not  ours,  that  his  15 
scorn  of  trade  and  handicraft  is  fantastic,  that  he  had  no 
conception  of  a  great  industrial  community  such  as  that  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  such  a  community  must  and  will 
shape  its  education  to  suit  its  own  needs.     If  the  usual 
education  handed  down  to  it  from  the  past  does  not  suit  it,  20 
it  will  certainly  before  long  drop  this  and  try  another.     The 
usual  education  in  the  past  has  been  mainly  literary.     The 
question  is  whether  the  studies  which  were  long  supposed 
to  be  the  best  for  all  of  us  are  practically  the  best  now; 
whether  others  are  not  better.     The  tyranny  of  the  past,  25 
many  think,  weighs  on  us  injuriously  in  the  predominance 
given  to  letters  in  education.     The  question  is  raised  whether, 
to  meet  the  needs  of  our  modern  life,   the  predominance 
ought  not  now  to  pass  from  letters  to  science;  and  naturally 
the    question    is    nowhere    raised    with    more   energy    than  30 
here  in   the   United   States.     The  design   of  abasing  what 
is   called    "  mere   literary   instruction    and   education,"  and 
of  exalting  what  is  called  "  sound,  extensive,  and  practical 
scientific   knowledge,"   is,   in   this   intensely   modern   world 
of  the  United  States,  even  more  perhaps  than  in  Europe,  35 
a  very  popular  design,  and  makes  great  and  rapid  progress. 

I  am  going  to  ask  whether  the  present  movement  for 


78  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

ousting  letters  from  their  old  predominance  in  education, 
and  for  transferring  the  predominance  in  education  to  the 
natural  sciences,  whether  this  brisk  and  flourishing  move- 
ment ought  to  prevail,  and  whether  it  is  likely  that  in  the 

5  end  it  really  will  prevail.  An  objection  may  be  raised  which 
I  will  anticipate.  My  own  studies  have  been  almost  wholly 
in  letters,  and  my  visits  to  the  field  of  the  natural  sciences 
have  been  very  slight  and  inadequate,  although  those 
sciences  have  always  strongly  moved  my  curiosity.     A  man 

loof  letters,  it  will  perhaps  be  said,  is  not  competent  to  dis- 
cuss the  comparative  merits  of  letters  and  natural  science 
as  means  of  education.  To  thir-  objection  I  reply,  first  of 
all,  that  his  incompetence  if  he  attempts  the  discussion 
but  is  really  incompetent  for  it,  will  be  abundantly  visible; 

IS  nobody  will  be  taken  in;  he  will  have  plenty  of  sharp 
observers  and  critics  to  save  mankind  from  that  danger. 
But  the  line  I  am  going  to  follow  is,  as  you  will  soon  dis- 
cover, so  extremely  simple,  that  perhaps  it  may  be  followed 
without  failure  even  by  one  who  for  a  more  ambitious  line 

20  of  discussion  would  be  quite  incompetent. 

Some  of  you  may  possibly  remember  a  j)hrase  of  mine 
which  has  been  the  object  of  a  good  deal  of  comment;  an 
observation  to  the  effect  that  in  our  culture,  the  aim  being 
to  know  ourselves  and  the  world,  we  have,  as  the  means  to 

25  this  end,  to  know  the  best  which  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the 
world.  A  man  of  science,  who  is  also  an  excellent  writer  and 
the  very  prince  of  debaters,  Professor  Huxley,  in  a  dis- 
course at  the  opening  of  Sir  Josiah  Mason's  College  at 
Birmingham,   laying  hold  of  this  phrase,   expanded  it  by 

30 quoting  some  more  words  of  mine,  which  are  these:  "  The 
civilised  world  is  to  be  regarded  as  now  being,  for  intellectual 
and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confederation,  bound  to  a 
joint  action  and  working  to  a  common  result;  and  whose 
members  have  for  their  proper  outfit  a  knowledge  of  Greek, 

35  Roman,  and  Eastern  antiquity,  and  of  one  another.  Special 
local  and  temporary  advantages  being  put  out  of  r. recount, 
that   modern   nation  will   in   the  intellectual  and  spiritual 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  79 

sphere  make  most  progress,  which  most  thoroughly  carries 
out  this  programme." 

Now  on  my  phrase,  thus  enlarged,  Professor  Huxley 
remarks  that  when  I  speak  of  the  above-mentioned  knowl- 
edge as  enabling  us  to  know  ourselves  and  the  world,  I  5 
I  assert  literature  to  contain  the  materials  which  suffice  for 
thus  making  us  know  ourselves  and  the  world.  But  it  is 
not  by  any  means  clear,  says  he,  that  after  having  learned 
all  which  ancient  and  modern  literatures  have  to  tell  us, 
we  have  laid  a  sufficiently  broad  and  deep  foundation  for  10 
that  criticism  of  life,  that  knowledge  of  ourselves  and  the 
world,  which  constitutes  culture.  On  the  contrary,  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  declares  that  he  finds  himself  "  wholly  unable 
to  admit  that  either  nations  or  individuals  will  really  advance, 
if  their  outfit  draws  nothing  from  the  stores  of  physical  15 
science.  An  army  without  weapons  of  precision,  and  with 
no  particular  base  of  operations,  might  more  hopefully 
enter  upon  a  campaign  on  the  Rhine,  than  a  man,  devoid 
of  a  knowledge  of  what  physical  science  has  done  in  the  last 
century,  upon  a  criticism  of  life."  20 

•  This  shows  how  needful  it  is  for  those  who  are  to  discuss 
any  matter  together,  to  have  a  common  understanding  as 
to  the  sense  of  the  terms  they  employ, — how  needful,  and 
how  difficult.  What  Professor  Huxley  says,  implies  just 
the  reproach  which  is  so  often  brought  against  the  study  25 
of  belles  lettres,  as  they  are  called:  that  the  study  is  an  elegant 
one,  but  slight  and  inefTectual;  a  smattering  of  Greek  and 
Latin  and  other  ornamental  things,  of  little  use  for  any  one 
whose  object  is  to  get  at  truth,  and  to  be  a  practical  man. 
So,  too,  M.  Renan  talks  of  the  "superficial  humanism  "30 
of  a  school  course  which  treats  us  as  if  we  were  all  going  to  be 
poets,  writers,  preachers,  orators,  and  he  opposes  this  hu- 
manism to  positive  science,  or  the  critical  search  after  truth. 
And  there  is  always  a  tendency  in  those  who  are  remonstrat- 
ing against  the  predominance  of  letters  in  education,  to  33 
understand  by  letters  belles  lettres,  and  by  belles  lettres  a  su- 
perficial humanism,  the  opposite  of  science  or  true  knowledge. 


80  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

But  when  we  talk  of  knowing  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity, 
for  instance,  which  is  the  knowledge  people  have  called  the 
humanities,  I  for  my  part  mean  a  knowledge  which  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  superficial  humanism,  mainly  decorative. 
5  "  I  call  all  teaching  scientific,'^  says  Wolf,  the  critic  of  Homer, 
"  which  is  systematically  laid  out  and  followed  up  to  its 
original  sources.  For  example:  a  knowledge  of  classical 
antiquity  is  scientific  when  the  remains  of  classical  antiquity 
are  correctly  studied  in  the  original  languages."     There  can 

lobe  no  doubt  that  Wolf  is  perfectly  right;  that  all  learning 
is  scientific  which  is  systematically  laid  out  and  followed 
up  to  its  original  sources,  and  that  a  genuine  humanism  is 
scientific. 

When  I  speak  of  knowing  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity, 

IS  therefore,  as  a  help  to  knowing  ourselves  and  the  world, 
I  mean  more  than  a  knowledge  of  so  much  vocabulary,  so 
much  grammar,  so  many  portions  of  authors  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  languages;  I  mean  knowing  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  their  life  and  genius,  and  what  they  were  and 

20 did  in  the  world;  what  we  get  from  them,  and  what  is  its 
value.  That,  at  least,  is  the  ideal;  and  when  we  talk  of 
endeavouring  to  know  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  as  a  help 
to  knowing  ourselves  and  the  world,  we  mean  endeavour- 
ing so  to  know  them  as  to  satisfy  this  ideal,  however  much 

25  we  may  still  fall  short  of  it. 

The  same  also  as  to  knowing  our  own  and  other  modern 
nations,  with  the  like  aim  of  getting  to  understand  ourselves 
and  the  world.  To  know  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  said  by  the  modern  nations,  is  to  know,  says  Professor 

30 Huxley,  "only  what  modern  literatures  have  to  tell  us;  it 
is  the  criticism  of  life  contained  in  modern  literature."  And 
yet  "  the  distinctive  character  of  our  times,"  he  urges, 
"  lies  in  the  vast  and  constantly  increasing  part  which  is 
played  by  natural  knowledge."     .And  how,  therefore,  can  a 

35  man,  devoid  of  knowledge  of  what  physical  science  has 
done  in  the  last  century,  enter  hopefully  upon  a  criticism 
of  modern  life? 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  81 

Let  us,  I  say,  be  agreed  about  the  meaning  of  the  terms 
we  are  using.  I  talk  of  icnowing  the  best  which  has  been 
thought  and  uttered  in  the  world;  Professor  Huxley  says  this 
means  knowing  literature.  Literature  is  a  large  word;  it  may 
mean  everything  written  with  letters  or  printed  in  a  book,  s 
Euclid's  Elements  and  Newton's  Principia  are  thus  literature. 
All  knowledge  that  reaches  us  through  books  is  literature. 
But  by  literature  Professor  Huxley  means  belles  lettres. 
He  means  to  make  me  say,  that  knowing  the  best  which  has 
been  thought  and  said  by  the  modern  nations  is  knowing  lo 
their  belles  lettres  and  no  more.  And  this  is  no  sufficient 
equipment,  he  argues,  for  a  criticism  of  modern  life.  But 
as  I  do  not  mean,  by  knowing  ancient  Rome,  knowing 
merely  more  or  less  of  Latin  belles  lettres,  and  taking  no 
account  of  Rome's  military,  and  political,  and  legal,  and  is 
administrative  work  in  the  world;  and  as,  by  knowing 
ancient  Greece,  I  understand  knowing  her  as  the  giver  of 
Greek  art,  and  the  guide  to  a  free  and  right  use  of  reason 
and  to  scientific  method,  and  the  founder  of  our  mathematics 
and  physics  and  astronomy  and  biology, — I  understand  20 
knowing  her  as  all  this,  and  not  merely  knowing  certain 
Greek  poems,  and  histories,  and  treatises,  and  speeches, — 
so  as  to  the  knowledge  of  modern  nations  also.  By  know- 
ing modern  nations,  I  mean  not  merely  knowing  their  belles 
lettres,  but  knowing  also  what  has  been  done  by  such  men  as  25 
Copernicus,  Galileo,  Newton,  Darwin.  ''  Our  ancestors 
learned,"  says  Professor  Huxley,  "  that  the  earth  is  the  centre 
of  the  visible  universe,  and  that  man  is  the  cynosure  of 
things  terrestrial;  and  more  especially  was  it  inculcated  that 
the  course  of  nature  has  no  fixed  order,  but  that  it  could  be,  30 
and  constantly  was,  altered."  But  for  us  now,  continues 
Professor  Huxley,  "  the  notions  of  the  beginning  and  the  end 
of  the  world  entertained  by  our  forefathers  are  no  longer 
credible.  It  is  very  certain  that  the  earth  is  not  the  chief 
body  in  the  material  universe,  and  that  the  world  is  not  35 
subordinated  to  man's  use.  It  is  even  more  certain  that 
nature  is  the  expression  of  a  definite  order,  with  which  noth- 


82  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

ing  interferes."  "  And  yet,"  he  cries,  "  the  purely  classical 
education  advocated  by  the  representatives  of  the  humanists 
in  our  day  gives  no  inkling  of  all  this!" 

In  due  place  and  time  I  will  just  touch  upon  that  vexed 
5  question  of  classical  education;  but  at  present  the  question 
is  as  to  what  is  meant  by  knowing  the  best  which  modern 
nations  have  thought  and  said.  It  is  not  knowing  their 
belles  lettres  merely  which  is  meant.  To  know  Italian  belles 
lettres  is  not  to  know  Italy,  and  to  know  English  belles  lettres 

lois  not  to  know  England.  Into  knowing  Italy  and  England 
there  comes  a  great  deal  more,  Galileo  and  Newton  amongst 
it.  The  reproach  of  being  a  superficial  humanism,  a  tincture 
of  belles  lettres,  may  attach  rightly  enough  to  some  other 
disciplines;    but  to  the  particular  discipline  recommended 

15  when  I  proposed  knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  said  in  the  world,  it  does  not  apply.  In  that  best  I 
certainly  include  what  in  modern  times  has  been  thought 
and  said  by  the  great  observers  and  knowers  of  nature. 

There  is,  therefore,  really  no  question  between  Professor 

2oHu.\ley  and  me  as  to  whether  knowing  the  great  results 
of  the  modern  scientific  study  of  nature  is  not  required  as  a 
part  of  our  culture,  as  well  as  knowing  the  products  of  lit- 
erature and  art.  But  to  follow  the  processes  by  which  those 
results  are  reached,  ought,  say  the  friends  of  physical  science, 

25  to  be  made  the  staple  of  education  for  the  bulk  of  mankind. 
And  here  there  does  arise  a  question  between  those  whom 
Professor  Huxley  calls  with  playful  sarcasm  "  the  Levites  of 
culture,"  and  those  whom  the  poor  humanist  is  sometimes 
apt  to  regard  as  its  Nebuchadnezzars. 

30  The  great  results  of  the  scientific  investigation  of  nature 
we  are  agreed  upon  knowing,  but  how  much  of  our  study 
are  we  bound  to  give  to  the  processes  by  which  those  results 
are  reached?  The  results  have  their  visible  bearing  on  human 
life.     But  all  the  processes,  too,  all  the  items  of  fact  by  which 

35  those  results  are  reached  and  established,  are  interesting. 
All  knowledge  is  interesting  to  a  wise  man,  and  the  knowledge 
of  nature  is  interesting  to  all  men.     It  is  very  interesting 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  83 

to  know,  that,  from  the  albuminous  white  of  the  egg,  the 
chick  in  the  egg  gets  the  materials  for  its  flesh,  bones,  blood, 
and  feathers;  while,  from  the  fatty  yolk  of  the  egg,  it  gets 
the  heat  and  energy  which  enable  it  at  length  to  break  its 
shell  and  begin  the  world.  It  is  less  interesting,  perhaps,  s 
but  still  it  is  interesting,  to  know  that  when  a  taper  burns, 
the  wax  is  converted  into  carbonic  acid  and  water.  More- 
over, it  is  quite  true  that  the  habit  of  dealing  with  facts, 
which  is  given  by  the  study  of  nature,  is,  as  the  friends  of 
physical  science  praise  it  for  being,  an  excellent  disciphne.  lo 
The  appeal,  in  the  study  of  nature,  is  constantly  to  observa- 
tion and  experiment;  not  only  is  it  said  that  the  thing  is  so, 
but  we  can  be  made  to  see  that  it  is  so.  Not  only  does  a 
man  tell  us  that  when  a  taper  burns  the  wax  is  converted 
into  carbonic  acid  and  water,  as  a  man  may  tell  us,  if  he  15 
likes,  that  Charon  is  punting  his  ferry  boat  on  the  river 
Styx,  or  that  Victor  Hugo  is  a  sublime  poet,  or  Mr.  Glad- 
stone the  most  admirable  of  statesmen;  but  we  are  made 
to  see  that  the  conversion  into  carbonic  acid  and  water  does 
actually  happen.  This  reality  of  natural  knowledge  it  is,  20 
which  makes  the  friends  of  physical  science  contrast  it,  as  a 
knowledge  of  things,  with  the  humanist's  knowledge,  which 
is,  they  say,  a  knowledge  of  words.  And  hence  Professor 
Huxley  is  moved  to  lay  it  down  that,  "  for  the  purpose  of 
attaining  real  culture,  an  exclusively  scientific  education  is  at  25 
least  as  effectual  as  an  exclusively  literary  education." 
And  a  certain  President  of  the  Section  for  Mechanical 
Science  in  the  British  Association  is,  in  Scripture  phrase, 
"  very  bold,"  and  declares  that  if  a  man,  in  his  mental 
training,  "  has  substituted  literature  and  history  for  naturals© 
science,  he  has  chosen  the  less  useful  alternative."  But 
whether  we  go  these  lengths  or  not,  we  must  all  admit  that  in 
natural  science  the  habit  gained  of  dealing  with  facts' is  a 
most  valuable  discipline,  and  that  every  one  should  have 
some  experience  of  it.  35 

More  than  this,  however,  is  demanded  by  the  reformers. 
It  is  proposed  to  make  the  training  in  natural  science  the 


84  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

main  part  of  education,  for  the  great  majority  of  mankind 
at  any  rate.  And  here,  I  confess,  I  part  company  with  the 
friends  of  physical  science,  with  whom  up  to  this  point  I 
have  been  agreeing.      In  differing  from   them,  however,  I 

5  wish  to  proceed  with  the  utmost  caution  and  diffidence. 
The  smallness  of  my  own  acquaintance  with  the  discipUnes 
of  natural  science  is  ever  before  my  mind,  and  I  am  fearful  of 
doing  these  disciplines  an  injustice.  The  ability  and 
pugnacity  of  the  partisans  of  natural  science  make  them 

lo  formidable  persons  to  contradict.  The  tone  of  tentative 
inquiry,  which  befits  a  being  of  dim  faculties  and  bounded 
knowledge,  is  the  tone  I  would  wish  to  take  and  not  to  depart 
from.  At  present  it  seems  to  me,  that  those  who  are  for 
giving  to  natural  knowledge,  as  they  call  it,  the  chief  place 

15  in  the  education  of  the  majority  of  mankind,  leave  one 
important  thing  out  of  their  account:  the  constitution  of 
human  nature.  But  I  put  this  forward  on  the  strength  of 
some  facts  not  at  all  recondite,  very  far  from  it;  facts  capable 
of  being  stated  in  the  simplest  possible  fashion,  and  to  which, 

20  if  I  so  state  them,  the  man  of  science  will,  I  am  sure,  be  willing 
to  allow  their  due  weight. 

Deny  the  facts  altogether,  I  think,  he  hardly  can.  He 
can  hardly  deny,  that  when  we  set  ourselves  to  enumerate 
the  powers  which  go  to  the  building  up  of  human  life,  and 

25  say  that  they  are  the  power  of  conduct,  the  power  of  intellect 
and  knowledge,  the  power  of  beauty,  and  the  power  of  social 
life  and  manners, — he  can  hardly  deny  that  this  scheme, 
though  drawn  in  rough  and  plain  lines  enough,  and  not 
pretending  to  scientific  exactness,   does  yet  give  a  fairly 

30  true  representation  of  the  matter.  Human  nature  is  built 
up  by  these  powers;  we  have  the  need  for  them  all.  When 
we  have  rightly  met  and  adjusted  the  claims  of  them  all. 
we  shall  then  be  in  a  fair  way  for  getting  soberness  and 
righteousness,  with  wisdom.     This  is  evident  enough,  and 

35  the  friends  of  physical  science  would  admit  it. 

But  perhaps  they  may  not  have  sufficiently  observed 
another  thing:    namely,  that  the  several  powers  just  men- 


LITERATURE  AND   SCIENCE  85 

tioned  are  not  isolated,  but  there  is,  in  the  generality  of 
mankind,  a  perpetual  tendency  to  relate  them  one  to  another 
in  divers  ways.  With  one  such  way  of  relating  them  I  am 
particularly  concerned  now.  Following  our  instinct  for 
intellect  and  knowledge,  we  acquire  pieces  of  knowledge;  5 
and  presently,  in  the  generality  of  men,  there  arises  the  desire 
to  relate  these  pieces  of  knowledge  to  our  sense  for  conduct, 
to  our  sense  for  beauty, — and  there  is  weariness  and  dis- 
satisfaction if  the  desire  is  balked.  Now  in  this  desire  lies, 
I  think,  the  strength  of  that  hold  which  letters  have  upon  us.  10 

All  knowledge  is,  as  I  said  just  now,  interesting;  and  even 
items  of  knowledge  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case  can- 
not well  be  related,  but  must  stand  isolated  in  our  thoughts, 
have  their  interest.  Even  lists  of  exceptions  have  their 
interest.  If  we  are  studying  Greek  accents,  it  is  interesting  15 
to  know  that  pais  and  pas,  and  some  other  monosyllables 
of  the  same  form  of  declension,  do  not  take  the  circumflex 
upon  the  last  syllable  of  the  genitive  plural,  but  vary,  in 
this  respect,  from  the  common  rule.  If  we  are  studying 
physiology,  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  pulmonary  20 
artery  carries  dark  blood  and  the  pulmonary  vein  carries 
bright  blood,  departing  in  this  respect  from  the  common 
rule  for  the  division  of  labour  between  the  veins  and  the 
arteries.  But  every  one  knows  how  we  seek  naturally  to 
combine  the  pieces  of  our  knowledge  together,  to  bring  them  25 
under  general  rules,  to  relate  them  to  principles;  and  how 
unsatisfactory  and  tiresome  it  would  be  to  go  on  forever 
learning  lists  of  exceptions,  or  accumulating  items  of  fact 
which  must  stand  isolated. 

Well,  that  same  need  of  relating  our  knowledge,  which  30 
operates  here  within  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge  itself,  we 
shall  find  operating,  also,  outside  that  sphere.  W^e  expe- 
rience, as  we  go  on  learning  and  knowing, — the  vast  majority 
of  us  experience, — the  need  of  relating  what  we  have  learned 
and  known  to  the  sense  which  we  have  in  us  for  conduct,  to  35 
the  sense  which  wc  have  in  us  for  beauty. 

A  certain    Greek   prophetess    of   Mantineia  in   Arcadia, 


86  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Diotima  by  name,  once  explained  to  the  philosopher  Socrates 
that  love,  and  impulse,  and  bent  of  all  kinds,  is,  in  fact, 
nothing  else  but  the  desire  in  men  that  good  should  for- 
ever be  present  to  them.  This  desire  for  good,  Diotima 
S  assured  Socrates,  is  our  fundamental  desire,  of  which  fun- 
damental desire  every  impulse  in  us  is  only  some  one  par- 
ticular form.  And  therefore  this  fundamental  desire  it 
is,  I  suppose, — this  desire  in  men  that  good  should  be  for- 
ever present  to  them, — which  acts  in  us  when  we  feel  the 

lo  impulse  for  relating  our  knowledge  to  our  sense  for  conduct 
and  to  our  sense  for  beauty.  At  any  rate,  with  men  in 
general  the  instinct  exists.  Such  is  human  nature.  And 
the  instinct,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  innocent,  and  human 
nature  is  preserved  by  our  following  the  lead  of  its  innocent 

15  instincts.  Therefore,  in  seeking  to  gratify  this  instinct 
in  question,  we  are  following  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion in  humanity. 

But,  no  doubt,  some  kinds  of  knowledge  cannot  be  made 
to  directly  serve  the  instinct  in  question,  cannot  be  directly 

20  related  to  the  sense  for  beauty,  to  the  sense  for  conduct. 
These  are  instrument-knowledges;  they  lead  on  to  other 
knowledges,  which  can.  A  man  who  passes  his  life  in  instru- 
ment-knowledges is  a  speciaHst.  They  may  be  invaluable 
as  instruments  to  something  beyond,  for  those  who  have 

25  the  gift  thus  to  employ  them;  and  they  may  be  disciplines 
in  themselves  wherein  it  is  useful  for  every  one  to  have 
some  schooling.  But  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  generality 
of  men  should  pass  all  their  mental  life  with  Greek  accents 
or  with  formal  logic.     My  friend  Professor  Sylvester,  who 

30  is  one  of  the  first  mathematicians  in  the  world,  holds  tran- 
scendental doctrines  as  to  the  virtue  of  mathematics,  but 
those  doctrines  are  not  for  common  men.  In  the  very  Sen- 
ate House  and  heart  of  our  English  Cambridge  I  once 
ventured,  though  not  without  an  apology  for  my  profane- 

35  ness,  to  hazard  the  opinion  that  for  the  majority  of  man- 
kind a  little  of  mathematics,  even,  goes  a  long  way.  Of 
course  this  is  quite  consistent  with  their  being  of  immense 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  87 

importance  as  an  instrument  to  something  else;  but  it  is 
the  few  who  have  the  aptitude  for  thus  using  them,  not  the 
bulk  of  mankind. 

The  natural  sciences  do  not,  however,  stand  on  the  same 
footing     with     these     instrument-knowledges.     Experience   s 
shows  us  that  the  generaUty  of  men  will  find  more  interest 
in  learning  that,  when  a  taper  burns,  the  wax  is  converted 
into  carbonic  acid  and  water,  or  in  learning  the  explanation 
of  the  phenomenon  of  dew,  or  in  learning  how  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  is  carried  on,  than  they  find  in  learning  that  lo 
the  genitive  plural  of  pais  and  pas  does  not  take  the  cir- 
cumflex  on   the   termination.     And   one   piece   of   natural 
knowledge  is  added  to  another,  and  others  are  added  to  that, 
and  at  last  we  come  to  propositions  so  interesting  as  Mr. 
Darwin's  famous  proposition  that  "  our  ancestor  was  a  hairy  15 
quadruped  furnished  with  a  tail  and  pointed  ears,  probably 
arboreal  in  his  habits."     Or  we  come  to  propositions  of  such 
reach    and    magnitude    as    those    which    Professor   Huxley 
delivers,  when  he  says  that  the  notions  of  our  forefathers 
about  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  world  were  all  wrong  20 
and  that  nature  is  the  expression  of  a  definite  order  with 
which  nothing  interferes. 

Interesting,  indeed,  these  results  of  science  are,  important 
they  are,  and  we  should  all  of  us  be  acquainted  with  them. 
But  what  I  now  wish  you  to  mark  is,  that  we  are  still,  when  25 
they  are  propounded  to  us  and  we  receive  them,  we  are  still 
in  the  sphere  of  intellect  and  knowledge.     And  for  the  gen- 
erality of  men  there  will  be  found,  I  say,  to  arise,  when  they 
have  duly  taken  in  the  proposition  that  their  ancestor  was 
"  a  hairy  quadruped  furnished  with  a  tail  and  pointed  ears,  30 
probably  arboreal  in  his  habits,"  there  will  be  found  to 
arise  an  invincible  desire  to  relate  this  proposition  to  the 
sense  in  us  for  conduct,  and  to  the  sense  in  us  for  bea'uty. 
But  this  the  men  of  science  will  not  do  for  us,  and  will 
hardly  even  profess  to  do.     They  will  give  us  other  pieces  35 
of  knowledge,  other  facts,  about  other  animals  and  their 
ancestors,  or  about  plants,  or  about  stones,  or  about  stars; 


88  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

and  they  may  finally  bring  us  to  those  great  "  general  con- 
ceptions of  the  universe,  which  are  forced  upon  us  all," 
says  Professor  Huxley,  "  by  the  progress  of  physical  science." 
But  still  it  will  be  knowledge  only  which  they  give  us;  knowl- 
5  edge  not  put  for  us  into  relation  with  our  sense  for  conduct, 
our  sense  for  beauty,  and  touched  with  emotion  by  being 
so  put;  not  thus  put  for  us,  and  therefore,  to  the  majority 
of  mankind,  after  a  certain  while,  unsatisfying,  wearying. 
Not  to  the  born  naturalist,  I  admit.     But  what  do  we 

lomean  by  a  born  naturalist?  We  mean  a  man  in  whom  the 
zeal  for  observing  nature  is  so  uncommonly  strong  and 
eminent,  that  it  marks  him  ofT  from  the  bulk  of  mankind. 
Such  a  man  will  pass  his  life  happily  in  collecting  natural 
knowledge  and  reasoning  upon  it,  and  will  ask  for  nothing, 

15  or  hardly  anything,  more.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the 
sagacious  and  admirable  naturalist  whom  we  lost  not  very 
long  ago,  Mr.  Darwin,  once  owned  to  a  friend  that  for  his 
part  he  did  not  experience  the  necessity  for  two  things  which 
most  men  find  so  necessary  to  them, — religion  and  poetry; 

20  science  and  the  domestic  affections,  he  thought,  were  enough. 
To  a  born  naturalist,  I  can  well  understand  that  this  should 
seem  so.  So  absorbing  is  his  occupation  with  nature,  so 
strong  his  love  for  his  occupation,  that  he  goes  on  acquiring 
natural  knowledge  and  reasoning  upon  it,  and  has  little  time 

25  or  inclination  for  thinking  about  getting  it  related  to  the 
desire  in  man  for  conduct,  the  desire  in  man  for  beauty. 
He  relates  it  to  them  for  himself  as  he  goes  along,  so  far  as 
he  feels  the  need;  and  he  draws  from  the  domestic  affec- 
tions all  the  additional  solace  necessary.     But  then  Darwins 

30  are  extremely  rare.  Another  great  and  admirable  master 
of  natural  knowledge,  Faraday,  was  a  Sandemanian.  That 
is  to  say,  he  related  his  knowledge  to  his  instinct  for  conduct 
and  to  his  instinct  for  beauty,  by  the  aid  of  that  respectable 
Scottish    sectary,    Robert    Sandeman.     And    so   strong,    in 

35  general,  is  the  demand  of  religion  and  poetry  to  have  their 
share  in  a  man,  to  associate  themselves  with  his  knowing, 
and  to  relieve  and  rejoice  it,  that  probably,  for  one  man 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  89 

amongst  us  with  the  disposition  to  do  as  Darwin  did  in  this 
respect,  there  are  at  least  fifty  with  the  disposition  to  do  as 
Faraday. 

Education  lays  hold  upon  us,  in  fact,  by  satisfying  this 
demand.     Professor   Huxley  holds   up   to   scorn   mediaeval  s 
education,   with  its  neglect  of   the   knowledge  of   nature, 
its  poverty  even  of  literary  studies,  its  formal  logic  devoted 
to  "  showing  how  and  why  that  which  the  Church  said  was 
true  must  be  true."     But  the  great  mediaeval  universities 
were  not  brought  into  being,  we  may  be  sure,  by  the  zeal  lo 
for   giving   a   jejune   and   contemptible   education.     Kings 
have  been  their  nursing  fathers,  and  queens  have  been  their 
nursing  mothers,  but  not  for  this.     The  mediaeval  universities 
came  into  being,  because  the  supposed  knowledge,  deUvered 
by   Scripture   and   the   Church,   so   deeply  engaged   men's  15 
hearts,  by  so  simply,  easily,  and  powerfully  relating  itself 
to  their  desire  for  conduct,   their  desire  for  beauty.     All 
other  knowledge  was  dominated  by  this  supposed  knowl- 
edge and  was  subordinated  to  it,  because  of  the  surpassing 
strength  of  the  hold  which  it  gained  upon  the  affections  of  20 
men,  by  allying  itself  profoundly  with  their  sense  for  conduct, 
their  sense  for  beauty. 

But    now,    says    Professor    Huxley,    conceptions    of    the 
universe  fatal  to  the  notions  held  by  our  forefathers  have 
been  forced  upon  us  by  physical  science.     Grant  to  him  25 
that  they  are  thus  fatal,  that  the  new  conceptions  must 
and  will  soon  become  current  everywhere,  and  that  every 
one  will  finally  perceive  them  to  be  fatal  to  the  beliefs  of 
our  forefathers.     The  need  of  humane  letters,  as  they  are 
truly  called,  because  they  serve  the  paramount  desire  in  30 
men  that  good  should  be  forever  present  to  them, — the  need 
of  humane  letters  to  establish  a  relation  between  the,  new 
conceptions,  and  our  instinct  for  beauty,  our  instinct  for 
conduct,  is  only  the  more  visible.     The  middle  age  could 
do  without  humane  letters,  as  it  could  do  without  the  study  35 
of  nature,   because  its  supposed  knowledge  was  made  to 
engage  its  emotions  so  powerfully.     Grant  that  the  supposed 


90  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

knowledge  disappears,  its  power  of  being  made  to  engage 
the  emotions  will  of  course  disappear  along  with  it, — but 
the  emotions  themselves,  and  their  claim  to  be  engaged 
and  satisfied,  will  remain.  Now  if  we  find  by  experience 
5  that  humane  letters  have  an  undeniable  power  of  engaging 
the  emotions,  the  importance  of  humane  letters  in  a  man's 
training  becomes  not  less,  but  greater,  in  proportion  to  the 
success  of  modern  science  in  extirpating  what  it  calls  "  med- 
iaeval thinking." 

lo  Have  humane  letters,  then,  have  poetry  and  eloquence, 
the  power  here  attributed  to  them  of  engaging  the  emotions, 
and  do  they  exercise  it?  And  if  they  have  it  and  exercise 
it,  how  do  they  exercise  it,  so  as  to  exert  an  influence  upon 
man's  sense  for  conduct,   his  sense  for  beauty?     Finally, 

IS  even  if  they  both  can  and  do  exert  an  influence  upon  the 
senses  in  question,  how  are  they  to  relate  to  them  the  results, 
— the  modern  results, — of  natural  science?  All  these 
questions  may  be  asked.  First,  have  poetry  and  eloquence 
the  powder  of  calling  out  the  emotions?     The  appeal  is  to 

20  experience.  Experience  shows  that  for  the  vast  majority 
"of  men,  for  mankind  in  general,  they  have  the  power.  Next, 
do  they  exercise  it?  They  do.  But  then,  how  do  they  exer- 
cise it  so  as  to  affect  man's  sense  for  conduct,  his  sense  for 
beauty?     And    this    is   perhaps    a    case    for    applying    the 

25  Preacher's  words:  "Though  a  man  labor  to  seek  it  out, 
yet  he  shall  not  find  it;  yea,  further,  though  a  wise  man  think 
to  know  it,  yet  shall  he  not  be  able  to  find  it."  ^  Why 
should  it  be  one  thing,  in  its  effect  upon  the  emotions,  to 
say,  "  Patience  is  a  virtue,"  and  quite  another  thing,  in  its 

30  effect  upon  the  emotions,  to  say  with  Homer, 

TXr/Tov  yap  'Motpai.  Ovphv  decrav  dvdpibiroicni'  —  - 

"  for  an  enduring  heart  have  the  destinies  appointed  to  the 
children  of  men  "  ?  Why  should  it  be  one  thing,  in  its 
effect  upon  the  emotions,  to  say  with  philosopher  Spinoza, 

'  From  l'"c(.!csi;istcs,  \"iii.  17. 
2  From  the  "  Iliad,"  xxiv,  49. 


LITERATURE  AND   SCIENCE  91 

Felicitas  in  eo  consistit  quod  homo  suum  esse  conservare  potest — 
"  Man's  happiness  consists  in  his  being  able  to  preserve 
his  own  essence,"  and  quite  another  thing,  in  its  effect  upon 
the  emotions,  to  say  with  the  Gospel,  "  What  is  a  man 
advantaged,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  himself,  5 
forfeit  himself?  "  How  does  this  difference  of  effect  arise? 
I  cannot  tell,  and  I  am  not  much  concerned  to  know;  the 
important  thing  is  that  it  does  arise,  and  that  we  can  profit 
by  it.  But  how,  finally,  are  poetry  and  eloquence  to  exercise 
the  power  of  relating  the  modern  results  of  natural  scierK:e  10 
to  man's  instinct  for  conduct,  his  instinct  for  beauty?  And 
here  again  I  answer  that  I  do  not  know  how  they  will  exercise 
it,  but  that  they  can  and  will  exercise  it  I  am  sure.  I  do 
not  mean  that  modern  philosophical  poets  and  modern 
philosophical  moralists  are  to  come  and  relate  for  us,  in  15 
express  terms,  the  results  of  modern  scientific  research  to 
our  instinct  for  conduct,  our  instinct  for  beauty.  But  I 
mean  that  we  shall  find,  as  a  matter  of  experience,  if  we 
know  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  uttered  in  the 
world,  we  shall  find  that  the  art  and  poetry  and  eloquence  20 
of  men  who  lived,  perhaps,  long  ago,  who  had  the  most 
limited  natural  knowledge,  who  had  the  most  erroneous 
conceptions  about  many  important  matters,  we  shall  find 
that  this  art,  and  poetry,  and  eloquence,  have  in  fact  not  only 
the  power  of  refreshing  and  delighting  us,  they  have  also  25 
the  power, — such  is  the  strength  and  worth,  in  essentials, 
of  their  authors'  criticism  of  life, — they  have  a  fortifying, 
and  elevating,  and  quickening,  and  suggestive  power, 
capable  of  wonderfully  helping  us  to  relate  the  results  of 
modern  science  to  our  need  for  conduct,  our  need  for  beauty.  30 
Homer's  conceptions  of  the  physical  universe  were,  I  imagine, 
grotesque;  but  really,  under  the  shock  of  hearing  from 
modern  science  that  "  the  world  is  not  subordinated  to  man's 
use,  and  that  man  is  not  the  cynosure  of  things  terrestrial," 
I  could,  for  my  own  [mrt,  desire  no  better  comfort  than  35 
Homer's  line  which  I  quoted  just  now, 

T\i}Tbv  yap  "Moipai  Ovixbv  6i(Ja.v  dfOpunroiaiv  — 


92  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

"  for  an  enduring  heart  have  the  destinies  appointed  to 
the  children  of  men!  " 

And  the  more  that  men's  minds  are  cleared,  the  more 
that  the  results  of  science  are  frankly  accepted,  the  more 
5  that  poetry  and  eloquence  come  to  be  received  and  studied 
as  what  in  truth  they  really  are, — the  criticism  of  life  by 
gifted  men,  alive  and  active  with  extraordinary  power  at 
an  unusual  number  of  points; — so  much  the  more  will  the 
value  of  humane  letters,  and  of  art  also,  which  is  an  utter- 

loance  having  a  like  kind  of  power  with  theirs,  be  felt  and 
acknowledged,  and  their  place  in  education  be  secured. 

Let  us  therefore,  all  of  us,  avoid  indeed  as  much  as  pos- 
sible any  invidious  comparison  between  the  merits  of  humane 
letters,  as  means  of  education,  and  the  merits  of  the  natural 

15  sciences.  But  when  some  President  of  a  Section  for  Me- 
chanical Science  insists  on  making  the  comparison,  and  tells 
us  that  "  he  who  in  his  training  has  substituted  literature 
and  history  for  natural  science  has  chosen  the  less  useful 
alternative,"  let  us  make  answer  to  him  that  the  student 

20  of  humane  letters  only,  will,  at  least,  know  also  the  great 
general  conceptions  brought  in  by  modern  physical  science; 
for  science,  as  Professor  Huxley  says,  forces  them  upon  us 
all.  But  the  student  of  the  natural  sciences  only,  will,  by 
our  very  hypothesis,  know  nothing  of  humane  letters;    not 

25  to  mention  that  in  setting  himself  to  be  perpetually  accu- 
mulating natural  knowledge,  he  sets  himself  to  do  what  only 
specialists  have  in  general  the  gift  for  doing  genially.  And 
so  he  will  probably  be  unsatisfied,  or  at  any  rate  incomplete, 
and  even   more  incomplete   than   the  student  of  humane 

30  letters  only. 

I  once  mentioned  in  a  school  report,  how  a  young  man  in 
one  of  our  English  training  colleges  having  to  paraphrase 
the  passage  in  Macbeth  beginning, 

Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased? 

35  turned  this  line  into,  "  Can  you  not  wait  upon  the  lunatic?" 
And  I  remarked  what  a  curious  state  of  things  it  would  be, 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  93 

if  every  pupil  of  our  national  schools  knew,  let  us  say,  that 
the  moon  is  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  in 
diameter,  and  thought  at  the  same  time  that  a  good  para- 
phase  for 

Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased?  5 

was,  "  Can  you  not  wait  upon  the  lunatic?"  If  one  is  driven 
to  choose,  I  think  I  would  rather  have  a  young  person 
ignorant  about  the  moon's  diameter,  but  aware  that  "  Can 
you  not  wait  upon  the  lunatic?"  is  bad,  than  a  young 
person  whose  education  had  been  such  as  to  manage  things  10 
the  other  way. 

Or  to  go  higher  than  the  pupils  of  our  national  schools. 
I  have  in  my  mind's  eye  a  member  of  our  British  Parliament 
who  comes  to  travel  here  in  America,  who  afterwards  relates 
his  travels,  and  who  shows  a  really  masterly  knowledge  of  15 
the  geology  of  this  great  country  and  of  its  mining  capabil- 
ities, but  who  ends  by  gravely  suggesting  that  the  United 
States  should  borrow  a  prince  from  our  Royal  Family,  and 
should  make  him  their  king,  and  should  create  a  House  of 
Lords  of  great  landed  proprietors  after  the  pattern  of  ours;  20 
and  then  America,  he  thinks,  would  have  her  future  happily 
and  perfectly  secured.  Surely,  in  this  case,  the  President 
of  the  Section  for  Mechanical  Science  would  himself  hardly 
say  that  our  member  of  Parliament,  by  concentrating  him- 
self upon  geology  and  mineralogy,  and  so  on,  and  not  attend-  25 
ing  to  literature  and  history,  had  "  chosen  the  more  useful 
alternative." 

If  then  there  is  to  be  separation  and  option  between 
humane  letters  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  natural  sciences 
on  the  other,  the  great  majority  of  mankind,  all  who  have 30 
not  exceptional  and  overpowering  aptitudes  for  the  study  of 
nature,  would  do  well,  I  cannot  but  think,  to  choose  to  be 
educated  in  humane  letters  rather  than  in  the  natural  sciences. 
Letters  will  call  out  their  being  at  more  points,  will  make  them 
live  more.  35 

I  said  that  before  I  ended  I  would  just  touch  on  the  ques- 


94  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

tion  of  classical  education,  and  I  will  keep  my  word.  Even 
if  literature  is  to  retain  a  large  place  in  our  education,  yet 
Latin  and  Greek,  say  the  friends  of  progress,  will  certainly 
have  to  go.  Greek  is  the  grand  offender  in  the  eyes  of  these 
5  gentlemen.  The  attackers  of  the  established  course  of 
study  think  that  against  Greek,  at  any  rate,  they  have 
irresistible  arguments.  Literature  may  perhaps  be  needed 
in  education,  they  say;  but  why  on  earth  should  it  be  Greek 
literature?    Why  not  French  or  German?    Nay,  "  has  not 

loan  Englishman  models  in  his  own  literature  of  every  kind 
of  excellence?"  As  before,  it  is  not  on  any  weak  pleadings 
of  my  own  that  I  rely  for  convincing  the  gainsayers;  it  is  on 
the  constitution  of  human  nature  itself,  and  on  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation  in  humanity.     The  instinct  for  beauty 

15  is  set  in  human  nature,  as  surely  as  the  instinct  for  knowl- 
edge is  set  there,  or  the  instinct  for  conduct.  If  the  instinct 
for  beauty  is  served  by  Greek  literature  and  art  as  it  is 
served  by  no  other  literature  and  art,  we  may  trust  to  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  in  humanity  for  keeping  Greek 

20  as  part  of  our  culture.  We  may  trust  to  it  for  ev'cn  making 
the  study  of  Greek  more  prevalent  than  it  is  now.  Greek 
will  come,  I  hope,  some  day  to  be  studied  more  rationally 
than  at  present;  but  it  will  be  increasingly  studied  as  men 
increasingly  feel  the  need  in   them  for  beauty,   and  how 

25  powerfully  Greek  art  and  Greek  literature  can  serve  this 
need.  Women  will  again  study  Greek,  as  Lady  Jane  Grey 
did;  I  believe  that  in  that  chain  of  forts,  with  which  the  fair 
host  of  the  Amazons  are  now  engirdling  our  English  univer- 
sities,— I  find  that  here  in  America,  in  colleges   like  Smith 

30  College  in  Massachusetts,  and  Vassar  College  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  and  in  the  happy  famiUes  of  the  mixed  universi- 
ties out  West, — they  are  studying  it  already. 

Dejidt  una  mihi  symmetria  prisca, — "  The  antique  sym- 
metry was  the  one  thing  wanting  to  me,"  said  Leonardo  da 

35  Vinci;   and  he  was  an  Italian.     I  will  not  presume  to  speak 

for  the  Americans,  but  I  am  sure  that,  in  the  Englishman,  the 

_  want  of  this  admirable  symmetry  of  the  Greeks  is  a  thousand 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  95 

times  more  great  and  crying  than  in  any  Italian.  The  results 
of  the  want  show  themselves  most  glaringly,  perhaps,  in  our 
architecture,  but  they  show  themselves,  also,  in  all  our  art. 
Fit  details  strictly  combined,  in  view  of  a  large  general  result 
nobly  conceived;  that  is  just  the  beautiful  symmetria  prisca  s 
of  the  Greeks,  and  it  is  just  where  we  English  fail,  where 
all  our  art  fails.  Striking  ideas  we  have,  and  well-e.xecuted 
details  we  have;  but  that  high  symmetry  which,  with 
satisfying  and  delightful  effect,  combines  them,  we  seldom 
or  never  have.  The  glorious  beauty  of  the  Acropolis  at  lo 
Athens  did  not  come  from  single  fine  things  stuck  about  on 
that  hill,  a  statue  here,  a  gateway  there; — no,  it  arose  from 
all  things  being  perfectly  combined  for  a  supreme  total  elTect. 
What  must  not  an  Englishman  feel  about  our  deficiencies 
in  this  respect,  as  the  sense  for  beauty,  whereof  this  sym- 15 
metry  is  an  essential  element,  awakens  and  strengthens 
within  him!  what  will  not  one  day  be  his  respect  and  desire 
for  Greece  and  its  symmetria  prisca,  when  the  scales  drop 
from  his  eyes  as  he  walks  the  London  streets,  and  he  sees 
such  a  lesson  in  meanness  as  the  Strand,  for  instance,  in  20 
its  true  deformity!  But  here  we  are  coming  to  our  friend 
Mr.  Ruskin's  province,  and  I  will  not  intrude  upon  it,  for 
he  is  its  very  sufficient  guardian. 

And  so  we  at  last  find,  it  seems,  we  find  flowing  in  favor 
of  the  humanities  the  natural  and  necessary  stream  of  things,  25 
which  seemed  against  them  when  we  started.  The  "  hairy 
quadruped  furnished  with  a  tail  and  pointed  ears,  probably 
arboreal  in  his  habits,"  this  good  fellow  carried  hidden  in  his 
nature,  apparently,  something  destined  to  develop  into  a 
necessity  for  humane  letters.  Nay,  more:  we  seem  finally 30 
to  be  even  led  to  the  further  conclusion  that  our  hairy 
ancestor  carried  in  his  nature,  also,  a  necessity  for  Greek. 

And  therefore,   to  say  the  truth,   I  cannot  really  think 
that  humane  letters  are  in  much  actual  danger  of  being  thrust 
out  from  their  leading  place  in  education,  in  spite  of  the  35 
array  of  authorities  against  them  at  this  moment.     So  long 
as  human  nature  is  what  it  is,  their  attractions  will  remain 


96  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

irresistible.  As  with  Greek,  so  with  letters  generally:  they 
will  some  day  come,  we  may  hope,  to  be  studied  more  ration- 
ally, but  they  will  not  lose  their  place.  What  will  happen 
will  rather  be  that  there  will  be  crowded  into  education 
5  other  matters  besides,  far  too  many;  there  will  be,  perhaps, 
a  period  of  unsettlement  and  confusion  and  false  tendency; 
but  letters  will  not  in  the  end  lose  their  leading  place.  If 
they  lose  it  for  a  time,  they  will  get  it  back  again.  We  shall 
be  brought  back  to  them  by  our  wants  and  aspirations. 

loAnd  a  poor  humanist  may  possess  his  soul  in  patience, 
neither  strive  nor  cry,  admit  the  energy  and  brilliancy  of  the 
partisans  of  physical  science,  and  their  present  favor  with 
the  public,  to  be  far  greater  than  his  own,  and  still  have  a 
happy  faith  that  the  nature  of  things  works  silently  on 

15  behalf  of  the  studies  which  he  loves,  and  that,  while  we  shall 
all  have  to  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  great  results  reached 
by  modern  science,  and  to  give  ourselves  as  much  training  in 
its  disciplines  as  we  can  conveniently  carry,  yet  the  majority 
of  men  will  always  require  humane  letters;  and  so  much  the 

20  more,  as  they  have  the  more  and  the  greater  results  of  science 
to  relate  to  the  need  in  man  for  conduct,  and  to  the  need  in 
him  for  beauty, 


HOW  TO  READ  i 

Frederic  Harrison 

It  is  the  fashion  for  those  who  have  any  connection  with 
letters  to  expatiate  on  the  infinite  blessings  of  literature, 
and  the  miraculous  achievements  of  the  press:  to  extol, 
as  a  gift  above  price,  the  taste  for  study  and  the  love  of 
reading.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  gainsay  the  inestimable  5 
value  of  good  books,  or  to  discourage  any  man  from  reading 
the  best;  but  I  often  think  that  we  forget  that  other  side  to 
this  glorious  view  of  literature — the  misuse  of  books,  the 
debilitating  waste  of  brain  in  aimless,  promiscuous,  vapid 
reading,  or  even,  it  may  be,  in  the  poisonous  inhalation  of  10 
mere  literary  garbage  and  bad  men's  worst  thoughts. 

For  what  can  a  book  be  more  than  the  man  who  wrote  it? 
The  brightest  genius  seldom  puts  the  best  of  his  own  soul 
into  his  printed  page;  and  some  famous  men  have  certainly 
put  the  worst  of  theirs.     Yet  are  all  men  desirable  com- 15 
panions,  much  less  teachers,  able  to  give  us  advice,  even  of 
those  who  get  reputation  and  command  a  hearing?   To  put 
out  of  the  question  that  writing  which  is  positively  bad,  are 
we  not,  amidst  the  multiplicity  of  books  and  of  writers,  in 
continual  danger  of  being  drawn  off  by  what  is  stimulating  20 
rather  than  solid,  by  curiosity  after  something  accidentally 
notorious,  by  what  has  no  intelligible  thing  to  recommend  it, 
except  that  it  is  new?  Now,  to  stuff  our  minds  with  what  is 
simply  trivial,  simply  curious,  or  that  which  at  best  has  but 
a  low  nutritive  power,  this  is  to  close  our  minds  to  what  is  25 
solid  and  enlarging,   and  spiritually  sustaining.     Whether 

^  From  "  The  Choice  of  Books,"  iSqi.     Printed  here  by  permission 
of  The  Macmillan  Company. 

97 


98  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

our  neglect  of  the  great  books  comes  from  our  not  reading 
at  all,  or  from  an  incorrigible  habit  of  reading  the  little  books, 
it  ends  in  just  the  same  thing.  And  that  thing  is  ignorance 
of  all  the  greater  literature  of  the  world.  To  neglect  all 
5  the  abiding  parts  of  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  the  evanescent 
parts  is  really  to  know  nothing  worth  knowing.  It  is  in 
the  end  the  same,  whether  we  do  not  use  our  minds  for 
serious  study  at  all,  or  whether  we  exhaust  them  by  an 
impotent  voracity  for  desultory   "  information  " — a   thing 

lo  as  fruitful  as  whistling.  Of  the  two  evils  I  prefer  the  former. 
At  least,  in  that  case,  the  mind  is  healthy  and  open.  It  is 
not  gorged  and  enfeebled  by  excess  in  that  which  cannot 
nourish,  much  less  enlarge  and  beautify  our  nature. 

But  there  is  much  more  than  this.     Even  to  those  who 

15  resolutely  avoid  the  idleness  of  reading  what  is  trivial,  a 
difficulty  is  presented — a  difficulty  every  day  increasing 
by  virtue  even  of  our  abundance  of  books.  What  are  the 
subjects,  what  are  the  class  of  books  we  are  to  read,  in  what 
order,  with  what  connection,  to  what  ultimate  use  or  object? 

20  Even  those  who  are  resolved  to  read  the  better  books  are 
embarrassed  by  a  field  of  choice  practically  boundless.  The 
longest  life,  the  greatest  industry,  joined  to  the  most  powerful 
memory,  would  not  suffice  to  make  us  profit  from  a  hundredth 
part  of  the  world  of  books  before  us.     If  the  great  Newton 

25  said  that  he  seemed  to  have  been  all  his  life  gathering  a  few 
shells  on  the  shore,  whilst  a  boundless  ocean  of  truth  still 
lay  beyond  and  unknown  to  him,  how  much  more  to  each  of 
us  must  the  sea  of  literature  be  a  pathless  immensity  beyond 
our  powers  of  vision  or  of  reach — an  immensity  in  which 

30  industry  itself  is  useless  without  judgment,  method,  dis- 
cipline; where  it  is  of  infinite  importance  v>'hat  we  can  learn 
and  remember,  and  of  utterly  no  importance  what  we  may 
have  once  looked  at  or  heard  of.  Alas!  the  most  of  our 
reading  leaves  as  little  mark  even  in  our  own  education  as 

35  the  foam  that  gathers  round  the  keel  of  a  passing  boat!  For 
myself,  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  most  useful  help  to  read- 
ing is  to  know  what  we  should  not  read,  what  we  can  keep 


HOW  TO  READ  99 

out  from  that  small  cleared  spot  in  the  overgrown  jungle 
of  "  information,"  the  corner  which  we  can  call  our  ordered 
patch  of  fruit-bearing  knowledge.  The  incessant  accumula- 
tion of  fresh  books  must  hinder  any  real  knowledge  of  the 
old;  for  the  multiplicity  of  volumes  becomes  a  bar  upon  our  s 
use  of  any.  In  literature  especially  does  it  hold — that  we 
cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees. 

How  shall  we  choose  our  books?  Which  are  the  best, 
the  eternal,  indispensable  books?  To  all  to  whom  reading 
is  something  more  than  a  refined  idleness  these  questions  lo 
recur,  bringing  with  them  the  sense  of  bewilderment;  and 
a  still,  small  voice  within  us  is  for  ever  crying  out  for  some 
guide  across  the  Slough  of  Despond  of  an  illimitable  and  ever- 
swelling  literature.  How  many  a  man  stands  beside  it, 
as  uncertain  of  his  pathway  as  the  Pilgrim,  when  he  who  15 
dreamed  the  immortal  dream  heard  him  "  break  out  with 
a  lamentable  cry;  saying,  what  shall  I  do?  " 

And  this,  which  comes  home  to  all  of  us  at  times,  presses 
hardest  upon  those  who  have  lost  the  opportunity  of  sys- 
tematic  education,   who   have   to   educate   themselves,   or  20 
who  seek  to  guide  the  education  of  their  young  people. 
Systematic  reading  is  but  little  iu  favour  even  amongst 
studious  men;  in  a  true  sense  it  is  hardly  possible  for  women. 
A  comprehensive  course  of  home  study,  and  a  guide  to  books, 
fit  for  the  highest  education  of  women,  is  yet  a  blank  page  25 
remaining  to  be  filled.     Generations  of  men  of  culture  have 
laboured  to  organise  a  system  of  reading  and   materials 
appropriate  for  the  methodical  education  of  men  in  academic 
lines.     Teaching  equal  in  mental  calibre  to  any  that  is  open 
to  men  in  universities,  yet  modified  for  the  needs  of  those  30 
who  must  study  at  home,  remains  in  the  dim  pages  of  that 
melancholy  volume  entitled  Libri  valde  desiderati} 

I  do  not  aspire  to  fill  one  of  those  blank  pages;    but  I 
long  to  speak  a  word  or  two,  as  the  Pilgrim  did  to  Neigh- 
bour Pliable,  upon  the  glories  that  await  those  who  will  35 
pass  through  the  narrow  wicket-gate.     On  this,  if  one  can 
^  Books  intensely  desired. 


100  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

find  anything  useful  to  say,  it  may  be  chiefly  from  the  memory 
of  the  waste  labour  and  pitiful  stumbling  in  the  dark  which 
fill  up  so  much  of  the  travail  that  one  is  fain  to  call  one's 
own  education.  We  who  have  wandered  in  the  wastes  so 
slong,  and  lost  so  much  of  our  lives  in  our  wandering,  may 
at  least  offer  warnings  to  younger  wayfarers,  as  men  who 
in  thorny  paths  have  borne  the  heat  and  burden  of  the 
day  might  give  a  clue  to  their  journey  to  those  who  have 
yet  a  morning  and  a  noon.     As  I  look  back  and  think  of 

lo  those  cataracts  of  printed  stuff  which  honest  compositors 
set  up,  meaning,  let  us  trust,  no  harm,  and  which  at  least 
found  them  in  daily  bread, — printed  stuff  which  I  and  the 
rest  of  us,  to  our  infinitely  small  profit,  have  consumed  with 
our  eyes,  not  even  making  an  honest  living  of  it,  but  much 

15  impairing  our  substance, — I  could  almost  reckon  the  print- 
ing press  as  amongst  the  scourges  of  mankind.  I  am  grown 
a  wiser  and  a  sadder  man,  importunate,  like  that  Ancient 
Mariner,  to  tell  each  bUthe  wedding  guest  the  tale  of  his 
shipwreck  on  the  infinite  sea  of  printers'  ink,  as  one  escaped 

20  by  mercy  and  grace  from  the  region  where  there  is  water, 
water,  everywhere,  and  not  a  drop  to  drink. 

A  man  of  power,  who  has  got  more  from  books  than  most 
of  his  contemporaries,  once  said:  "  Form  a  habit  of  reading, 
do  not  mind  what  you  read;    the  reading  of  better  books 

25  will  come  when  you  have  a  habit  of  reading  the  inferior." 
We  need  not  accept  this  ohiter  dictum  ^  of  Lord  Sherbrooke. 
A  habit  of  reading  idly  debilitates  and  corrupts  the  mind 
for  all  wholesome  reading;  the  habit  of  reading  wisely  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  habits  to  acquire,  needing  strong 

30 resolution  and  infinite  pains;  and  reading  for  mere  reading's 
sake,  instead  of  for  the  sake  of  the  good  we  gain  from  reading, 
is  one  of  the  worst  and  commonest  and  most  unwholesome 
habits  we  have.  And  so  our  inimitable  humorist  has  made 
delightful  fun   of  the  solid  books, — which  no  gentleman's 

35  library  should  be  without, — the    Humes.    Gibbons,   Adam 
Smiths,    which,  he  says,  are  not  books  at  all,  and  prefers  some 
1  Thing  said  in  passing.. 


HOW  TO  READ  101 

"  kindhearted  play-book,"  or  at  times  the  Town  afid  County 
Magazine.  Poor  Lamb  has  not  a  little  to  answer  for,  in  the 
revived  relish  for  garbage  unearthed  from  old  theatrical 
dungheaps.  Be  it  jest  or  earnest,  I  have  little  patience  with 
the  Elia-tic  philosophy  of  the  frivolous.  Why  do  we  still  s 
suffer  the  traditional  hypocrisy  about  the  dignity  of  litera- 
ture— literature,  I  mean,  in  the  gross,  which  includes  about 
equal  parts  of  what  is  useful  and  what  is  useless?  Why  are 
books  as  books,  writers  as  writers,  readers  as  readers,  meri- 
torious, apart  from  any  good  in  them,  or  anything  that  we  lo 
can  get  from  them?  Why  do  we  pride  ourselves  on  our 
powers  of  absorbing  print,  as  our  grandfathers  did  on  their 
gifts  in  imbibing  port,  when  we  know  that  there  is  a  mode 
of  absorbing  print  which  makes  it  impossible  that  we  can 
ever  learn  anything  good  out  of  books?  15 

Our  stately  Milton  said  in  a  passage  which  is  one  of  the 
watchwards  of  the  English  race,  "  as  good  almost  kill  a  Man 
as  kill  a  good  Book."  But  has  he  not  also  said  that  he 
would  "  have  a  vigilant  eye  how  Bookes  demeane  themselves, 
as  well  as  men;  and  do  sharpest  justice  on  them  as  male- 20 
factors"?  .  .  .  Yes!  they  do  kill  the  good  book  who  deliver 
up  their  few  and  precious  hours  of  reading  to  the  trivial 
book;  they  make  it  dead  for  them;  they  do  what  lies  in 
them  to  destroy  "  the  precious  life-blood  of  a  master-spirit, 
imbalm'd  and  treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  25 
life;  "  they  "  spill  that  season'd  life  of  man  preserv'd  and 
stor'd  up  in  Bookes."  For  in  the  wilderness  of  books  most 
men,  certainly  all  busy  men,  must  strictly  choose.  If  they 
saturate  their  minds  with  the  idler  books,  the  "  good  book," 
which  Milton  calls  "an  immortality  rather  than  a  life," 3c 
is  dead  to  them:   it  is  a  book  sealed  up  and  buried. 

It  is  most  right  that  in  the  great  republic  of  letters  there 
should  be  freedom  of  intercourse  and  a  spirit  of  equality. 
Every  reader  who  holds  a  book  in  his  hand  is  free  of  the 
inmost  minds  of  men  past  and  present;  their  lives  both 35 
within  and  without  the  pale  of  their  uttered  thoughts  are 
unveiled  to  him;    he  needs  no  introduction  to  the  greatest; 


102  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

he  stands  on  no  ceremony  with  them;  he  may,  if  he  be  so 
minded,  scribble  "  doggrel  "  on  his  Shelley,  or  he  may 
kick  Lord  Byron,  if  he  please,  into  a  corner.  He  hears 
Burke  perorate,  and  Johnson  dogmatise,  and  Scott  tell  his 
S  border  tales,  and  Wordsworth  muse  on  the  hillside,  without 
the  leave  of  any  man,  or  the  payment  of  any  toll.  In  the 
republic  of  letters  there  are  no  privileged  orders  or  places 
reserved.  Every  man  who  has  written  a  book,  even  the 
diligent  Mr.  Whitaker,  is  in  one  sense  an  author;   "  a  book's 

loa  book  although  there's  nothing  in't;  "  and  every  man 
who  can  decipher  a  penny  journal  is  in  one  sense  a  reader. 
And  your  "  general  reader,"  like  the  grave-digger  in  Hamlet, 
is  hail-fellow  with  all  the  mighty  dead;  he  pats  the  skull  of 
the  jester;   batters  the  cheek  of  lord,  lady,  or  courtier;   and 

IS  uses  "imperious  Caesar"  to  teach  boys  the  Latin  declen- 
sions. 

But  this  noble  equality  of  all  writers — of  all  writers  and 
of  all  readers — has  a  perilous  side  to  it.  It  is  apt  to  make 
us  indiscriminate  in  the  books  we  read,  and  somewhat  con- 

20  temptuous  of  the  mighty  men  of  the  past.  Men  who  are  most 
observant  as  to  the  friends  they  make,  or  the  conversation 
they  share,  are  carelessness  itself  as  to  the  books  to  whom 
they  entrust  themselves,  and  the  printed  language  with  which 
they  saturate  their  minds.     Yet  can  any  friendship  or  society 

25  be  more  important  to  us  than  that  of  the  books  which  form 
so  large  a  part  of  our  minds  and  even  of  our  characters?  Do 
we  in  real  life  take  any  pleasant  fellow  to  our  homes  and  chat 
with  some  agreeable  rascal  by  our  firesides,  we  who  will 
take  up  any  pleasant  fellow's  printed  memoirs,  we  who  de- 

30  light  in  the  agreeable  rascal  when  he  is  cut  up  into  pages  and 
bound  in  calf? 

If  any  person  given  to  reading  were  honestly  to  keep  a 
register  of  all  the  printed  stuff  that  he  or  she  consumes  in  a 
year — all  the  idle  tales  of  which  the  very  names  and  the 

35  story  are  forgotten  in  a  week,  the  bookmaker's  prattle 
about  nothing  at  so  much  a  sheet,  the  fugitive  trifling  about 
silly  things  and  empty  people,  the  memoirs  of  the  unmemo- 


HOW  TO  READ  103 

rable,  and  lives  of  those  who  never  really  lived  at  all — of 
what  a  mountain  of  rubbish  would  it  be  the  catalogue:  Exer- 
cises for  the  eye  and  the  memory,  as  mechanical  as  if  we  set 
ourselves  to  learn  the  names,  ages,  and  family  histories  of 
every  one  who  lives  in  our  own  street,  the  flirtations  of  their  5 
maiden  aunts,  and  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  birth 
of  their  grandmother's  first  baby. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  any  method  to  our  reading  till 
we  get  nerve  enough  to  reject.     The  most  exclusive  and 
careful  amongst  us  will  (in  literature)  take  boon  companions  10 
out  of  the  street,  as  easily  as  an  idler  in  a  tavern.     "  I  came 
across  such  and  such  a  book  that  I  never  heard  mentioned," 
says  one,  "  and  found  it  curious,  though  entirely  worthless." 
"  I  strayed  on  a  volume  by  I  know  not  whom,  on  a  subject 
for  which  I  never  cared."     And  so  on.     There  are  curious  15 
and  worthless  creatures  enough  in  any  pot-house  all  day 
long;  and  there  is  incessant  talk  in  omnibus,  train,  or  street 
by  we  know  not  whom,  about  we  care  not  what.     Yet  if  a 
printer  and  a  bookseller  can  be  induced  to  make  this  gabble 
as  immortal  as  print  and  publication  can  make  it,  then  it  20 
straightway    is    literature,    and    in    due    time    it    becomes 
"  curious." 

I  have  no  intention  to  moralise  or  to  indulge  in  a  homily 
against  the  reading  of  what  is  deliberately  evil.     There  is 
not  so  much  need  for  this  now,  and  I  am  not  discoursing  on  25 
the  whole  duty  of  man.     I  take  that  part  of  our  reading  which 
by  itself  is  no  doubt  harmless,  entertaining,  and  even  gently 
instructive.     But  of  this  enormous  mass  of  literature  how 
much  deserves  to  be  chosen  out,  to  be  preferred  to  all  the 
great  books  of  the  world,  to  be  set  apart  for  those  precious  30 
hours  which  are  all  that  the  most  of  us  can  give  to  solid 
reading?     The  vast  proportion  of  books  are  books  that  we 
shall  never  be  able  to  read.     A  serious  percentage  of  books 
are  not  worth  reading  at  all.     The  really  vital  books  for  us 
we  also  know  to  be  a  very  trilling  portion  of  the  whole.     And  35 
yet  we  act  as  if  every  book  were  as  good  as  any  other,  as  if 
it  were  merely  a  question  of  order  which  we  take  u[)  first,  as 


104  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

if  any  book  were  good  enough  for  us,  and  as  if  all  were  alike 
honourable,  precious,  and  satisfying.  Alas!  books  cannot 
be  more  than  the  men  who  write  them;  and  as  a  fair  propor- 
tion of  the  human  race  now  write  books,  with  motives  and 
5  objects  as  various  as  human  activity,  books,  as  books,  are 
entitled  a  priori,  until  their  value  is  proved,  to  the  same 
attention  and  respect  as  houses,  steam-engines,  pictures, 
fiddles,  bonnets,  and  other  products  of  human  industry. 
In  the  shelves  of  those  libraries  which  are  our  pride,  libraries 

lo  public  or  private,  circulating  or  very  stationary,  are  to  be 
found  those  great  books  of  the  world  rari  nantes  in  gurgite 
vasto,^  those  books  which  are  truly  "  the  precious  life-blood 
of  a  master-spirit."  But  the  very  familiarity  which  their 
mighty  fame  has  bred  in  us  makes  us  indifferent;   we  grow 

IS  weary  of  what  every  one  is  supposed  to  have  read;  and  we 
take  down  something  which  looks  a  little  eccentric,  some 
worthless  book,  on  the  mere  ground  that  we  never  heard 
of  it  before. 

Thus  the  difficulties  of  literature  are  in  their  way  as  great 

20  as  those  of  the  world,  the  obstacles  to  finding  the  right 
friends  are  as  great,  the  peril  is  as  great  of  being  lost  in  a 
Babel  of  voices  and  an  ever-changing  mass  of  beings.  Books 
are  not  wiser  than  men,  the  true  books  are  not  easier  to  find 
than  the  true  men,  the  bad  books  or  the  vulgar  books  are 

25  not  less  obtrusive  and  not  less  ubiquitous  than  the  bad  or 
vulgar  men  are  everywhere;  the  art  of  right  reading  is  as 
long  and  difficult  to  learn  as  the  art  of  right  living.  Those 
who  are  on  good  terms  with  the  first  author  they  meet, 
run  as  much  risk  as  men  who  surrender  their  time  to  the 

30 first  passer  in  the  street;  for  to  be  open  to  every  book  is 
for  the  most  part  to  gain  as  little  as  possible  from  any.  A 
man  aimlessly  wandering  about  in  a  crowded  city  is  of  all 
men  the  most  lonely;  so  he  who  takes  up  only  the  books 
that  he  "  comes  across  "  is  pretty  certain  to  meet  but  few 

35  that  are  worth  knowing. 

Now  this  danger  is  one  to  which  we  are  specially  e.xposed 
1  Floaling  scallercd  on  the  vast  abyss. 


now  TO  READ  105 

in  this  age.  Our  high-pressure  life  of  emergencies,  our 
whirling  industrial  organisation  or  disorganisation  have 
brought  us  in  this  (as  in  most  things)  their  peculiar  dif- 
ficulties and  drawbacks.  In  almost  everything  vast  oppor- 
tunities and  gigantic  means  of  multiplying  our  products  5 
bring  with  them  new  perils  and  troubles  which  are  often  at 
first  neglected.  Our  huge  cities,  where  wealth  is  piled  up 
and  the  requirements  and  appliances  of  life  extended  beyond 
the  dreams  of  our  forefathers,  seem  to  breed  in  themselves 
new  forms  of  squalor,  disease,  blights,  or  risks  to  life  such  as  lo 
we  are  yet  unable  to  master.  So  the  enormous  multiplicity 
of  modern  books  is  not  altogether  favourable  to  the  knowing 
of  the  best.  I  Hsten  with  mixed  satisfaction  to  the  pasans 
that  they  chant  over  the  works  which  issue  from  the  press 
each  day:  how  the  books  poured  forth  from  Paternoster  15 
Row  might  in  a  few  years  be  built  into  a  pyramid  that 
would  fill  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's.  How  in  this  mountain  of 
literature  am  I  to  find  the  really  useful  book?  How,  when 
I  have  found  it,  and  found  its  value,  am  I  to  get  others  to 
read  it?  How  am  I  to  keep  my  head  clear  in  the  torrent  20 
and  din  of  works,  all  of  which  distract  my  attention,  most 
of  which  promise  me  something,  whilst  so  few  fulfil  that 
promise?  The  Nile  is  the  source  of  the  Egyptian's  bread, 
and  without  it  he  perishes  of  hunger.  But  the  Nile  may  be 
rather  too  liberal  in  his  flood,  and  then  the  Egyptian  runs  25 
imminent  risk  of  drowning. 

And  thus  there  never  was  a  time,  at  least  during  the 
last  two  hundred  years,  when  the  diflficulties  in  the  way  of 
making  an  efficient  use  of  books  were  greater  than  they  are 
to-day,  when  the  obstacles  were  more  real  between  readers 30 
and  the  right  books  to  read,  when  it  was  practically  so 
troublesome  to  find  out  that  which  it  is  of  vital  importance 
to  know;  and  that  not  by  the  dearth,  but  by  the  plethora 
of  printed  matter.  For  ii  comes  to  nearly  the  same  thing 
whether  we  are  actually  debarred  by  physical  imi^ossibility 35 
from  getting  the  right  ttook  into  our  hand,  or  whether  we 
are  choked  off  from  the  right  book  by  the  obtrusive  crowd 


106  FREDERIC   HARRISON 

of  the  wrong  books;  so  that  it  needs  a  strong  character  and 
a  resolute  system  of  reading  to  keep  the  head  cool  in  the 
storm  of  literature  around  us.  We  read  nowadays  in  the 
market-place — I  would  rather  say  in  some  large  steam 
5  factory  of  letter-press,  where  damp  sheets  of  new  print 
whirl  round  us  perpetually — if  it  be  not  rather  some  noisy 
book-fair  where  literary  showmen  tempt  us  with  performing 
dolls,  and  the  gongs  of  rival  booths  are  stunning  our  ears 
from  morn  till  night.     Contrast  with  this  pandemonium  of 

loLeipsic  and  Paternoster  Row  the  sublime  picture  of  our 
Milton  in  his  early  retirement  at  Horton,  when,  musing  over 
his  coming  flight  to  the  epic  heaven,  practising  his  pinions, 
as  he  tells  Diodati,  he  consumed  five  years  of  solitude  in 
reading  the  ancient  writers — ''  Et  totum  rapiunt  me,  mca 

isvita,  libri."  ^ 

Who  now  reads  the  ancient  writers?  Who  systematically 
reads  the  great  writers,  be  they  ancient  or  modern,  whom 
the  consent  of  ages  has  marked  out  as  classics:  typical, 
immortal,  peculiar  teachers  of  our  race?     Alas!  the  Paradise 

20  Lost  is  lost  again  to  us  beneath  an  inundation  of  graceful 
academic  verse,  sugary  stanzas  of  ladylike  prettiness,  and 
ceaseless  explanations  in  more  or  less  readable  prose  of  what 
John  Milton  meant  or  did  not  mean,  or  what  he  saw  or  did 
not  see,   who  married  his  great-aunt,   and  why  Adam   or 

25  Satan  is  like  that,  or  unlike  the  other.  We  read  a  perfect 
library  about  the  Paradise  Lost,  but  the  Paradise  Lost 
itself  we  do  not  read. 

I  am  not  presumptuous  enough  to  assert  that  the  larger 
part  of  modern  literature  is  not  worth  reading  in  itself,  that 

30  the  prose  is  not  readable,  entertaining,  one  may  say  highly 
instructive.  Nor  do  I  pretend  that  the  verses  which  we 
read  so  zealously  in  place  of  Milton's  are  not  good  verses. 
On  the  contrary,  I  think  them  sweetly  conceived,  as  musical 
and  as  graceful  as  the  verse  of  any  age  in  our  history.     A 

35  great  deal  of  our  modern  hterature  is  such  that  it  is  exceed- 

*  "  And  here  my  books — my  life — absorb  mc  whole,"  Cowpcr's 
translalion  of  Millou's  Latin  Episllc  lo  Diodati. 


HOW  TO  READ  107 

ingly  difficult  to  resist  it,  and  it  is  undeniable  that  it  gives 
us  real  information.  It  seems  perhaps  unreasonable  to 
many  to  assert  that  a  decent  readable  book  which  gives  us 
actual  instruction  can  be  otherwise  than  a  useful  companion 
and  a  solid  gain.  Possibly  many  people  are  ready  to  cry  5 
out  upon  me  as  an  obscurantist  for  venturing  to  doubt 
a  genial  confidence  in  all  literature  sim[)ly  as  such.  But 
the  question  which  weighs  upon  me  with  such  really  crush- 
ing urgency  is  this:  What  are  the  books  that  in  our  little 
remnant  of  reading  time  it  is  most  vital  for  us  to  know?  10 
For  the  true  use  of  books  is  of  such  sacred  value  to  us  that 
to  be  simply  entertained  is  to  cease  to  be  taught,  elevated, 
inspired  by  books;  merely  to  gather  information  of  a  chance 
kind  is  to  close  the  mind  to  knowledge  of  the  urgent  kind. 

Every  book  that  we  take  up  without  a  purpose  is  an  oppor- 15 
tunity  lost  of  taking  up  a  book  with  a  purpose — every  bit 
of  stray  information  which  we  cram  into  our  heads  without 
any  sense  of  its  importance,  is  for  the  most  part  a  bit  of  the 
most  useful  information  driven  out  of  our  heads  and  choked 
off  from  our  minds.     It  is  so  certain  that  information,  i.e.,  20 
the   knowledge,   the  stored   thoughts  and  observations   of 
mankind,   is  now  grown   to  proportions  so  utterly  incal- 
culable and  prodigious,  that  even  the  learned  whose  lives 
are  given  to  study  can  but  pick  up  some  crumbs  that  fall 
from  the  table  of  truth.     They  delve  and  tend  but  a  plot  in  25 
that  vast  and  teeming  kingdom,  whilst  those  whom  active 
life  leaves  with  but  a  few  cramped  hours  of  study  can  hardly 
come  to  know  the  very  vastness  of  the  field  before  them, 
or  how  infmitesimally  small  is  the  corner  they  can  traverse 
at  the  best.     We  know  all  is  not  of  equal  value.     We  know  30 
that  books  differ  in  value  as  much  as  diamonds  differ  from 
the  sand  on  the  seashore,  as  much  as  our  living  friend  differs 
from  a  dead  rat.     We  know  that  much  in  the  myriad-peo- 
pled world  of  books — very   much  in  all  kinds — is  trivial, 
enervating,  inane,  even  noxious.     And  thus,  where  we  have 35 
infinite  opportunities  of  wasting  our  efforts  to  no  end,  of 
fatiguing  our  minds  without  enriching   them,   of  clogging 


108  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

the  spirit  without  satisfying?  it,  there,  I  cannot  l)ut  think, 
the  very  infinity  of  opportunities  is  robbing  us  of  the  actual 
power  of  using  them.  And  thus  I  come  often,  in  my  less 
hopeful  moods,  to  watch  the  remorseless  cataract  of  daily 
5  literature  which  thunders  over  the  remnants  of  the  past, 
as  if  it  were  a  fresh  impediment  to  the  men  of  our  day  in 
the  way  of  systematic  knowledge  and  consistent  powers  of 
thought,  as  if  it  were  destined  one  day  to  overwhelm  the 
great  inheritance  of  mankind  in  prose  and  verse. 

lo  I  remember,  when  I  was  a  very  young  man  at  college, 
that  a  youth,  in  no  spirit  of  paradox,  but  out  of  plenary 
conviction,  undertook  to  maintain  before  a  body  of  serious 
students,  the  astounding  proposition  that  the  invention 
of  printing  had  been  one  of  the  greatest  misfortunes  that 

15  had  ever  befallen  mankind.  He  argued  that  exclusive 
reliance  on  printed  matter  had  destroyed  the  higher  method 
of  oral  teaching,  the  dissemination  of  thought  by  the  spoken 
word  to  the  attentive  ear.  He  insisted  that  the  formation 
of  a  vast  literary  class  looking  to  the  making  of  books  as 

20  a  means  of  making  money,  rather  than  as  a  social  duty, 
had  multiplied  books  for  the  sake  of  the  writers  rather  than 
for  the  sake  of  the  readers;  that  the  reliance  on  books  as  a 
cheap  and  common  resource  had  done  much  to  weaken 
the  powers  of  memory;    that  it  destroyed  the  craving  for 

25  a  general  culture  of  taste,  and  the  need  of  artistic  expression 
in  all  the  surroundings  of  life.  And  he  argued,  lastly,  that 
the  sudden  multiplication  of  all  kinds  of  printed  matter  had 
been  fatal  to  the  orderly  arrangement  of  thought,  and  had 
hindered  a  system  of  knowledge  and  a  scheme  of  education. 

30  I  am  far  from  sharing  this  immature  view.  Of  course  I 
hold  the  invention  of  printing  to  have  been  one  of  the  most 
momentous  facts  in  the  whole  history  of  man.  Without 
it  universal  social  progress,  true  democratic  enlightenment, 
and  the  education  of  the  people  would  have  been  impossible, 

35  or  very  slow,  even  if  the  cultured  few,  as  is  likely,  could 
have  advanced  the  knowledge  of  mankind  without  it.  We 
place  Gutenberg  amongst  the  small  list  of  the  unique  and 


HOW  TO   RKAl)  109 

special  benefactors  of  mankind,  in  the  sacred  choir  of  those 
whose  work  transformed  the  conditions  of  life,  whose  work, 
once  done,  could  never  be  repeated.  And  no  doubt  the  things 
which  our  ardent  friend  regarded  as  so  fatal  a  disturbance 
of  society  were  all  inevitable  and  necessary,  part  of  the  great  s 
revolution  of  mind  through  which  men  grew  out  of  the 
mediaeval  incompleteness  to  a  richer  conception  of  life 
and  of  the  world. 

Yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  boyish  anathema  against 
printing  may  become  true  to  us  by  our  own  fault.     We  lo 
may  create  for  ourselves  these  very  evils.     For  the  art  of 
printing  has  not  been  a  gift  wholly  unmixed  with  evils; 
it  must  be  used  wisely  if  it  is  to  be  a  boon  to  man  at  all; 
it   entails   on   us  heavy  responsibilities,   resolution   to   use 
it  with  judgment  and  self-control,  and  the  will  to  resist  its  15 
temptations  and  its  perils.     Indeed,  we  may  easily  so  act 
that  we  may  make  it  a  clog  on  the  progress  of  the  human 
mind,  a  real  curse  and  not  a  boon.     The  power  of  flying 
at  will  through  space  would  probably  extinguish  civilisa- 
tion and  society,  for  it  would  release  us  from  the  whole-  20 
some  bondage  of  place  and  rest.     The  power  of  hearing 
every   word   that    had  ever  been    uttered    on  this    planet 
would  annihilate    thought,  as    the   power   of  knowing   all 
recorded  facts  by  the  process  of  turning  a   handle  would 
annihilate    true    science.     Our    human    faculties    and    our  25 
mental  forces  are  not  enlarged  simply  by  multiplying  our 
materials  of  knowledge  and  our  facilities  for  communica- 
tion.    Telephones,  microphones,  pantoscopes,  steam-presses, 
and  ubiquity-engines  in  general  may,  after  all,  leave  the 
poor  human  brain  panting  and  throbbing  under  the  strain  30 
of  its  appliances,  no  bigger  and  no  stronger  than  the  brains 
of  the  men  who  heard  Moses  speak,  and  saw  Aristotle  and 
Archimedes   pondering   over  a   few   worn   rolls  of  crabl^ed 
manuscript.     Until  some  new  Gutenberg  or  Watt  can  invent 
a  machine  for  magnifying  the  human   mind,   every  fresh 35 
apparatus  for  mullij)lying  its  work  is  a  fresh  strain  on  the 
mind,  a  new  realm  for  it  to  order  and  to  rule. 


110  FREDERIC   HARRISON 

And  so,  I  say  it  most  confidently,  the  first  intellectual 
task  of  our  age  is  rightly  to  order  and  make  serviceable 
the  vast  realm  of  printed  material  which  four  centuries  have 
swept  across  our  path.  To  organise  our  knowledge,  to 
S  systematise  our  reading,  to  save,  out  of  the  relentless 
cataract  of  ink,  the  immortal  thoughts  of  the  greatest — 
this  is  a  necessity,  unless  the  productive  ingenuity  of  man 
is  to  lead  us  at  last  to  a  measureless  and  pathless  chaos. 
To  know  anything  that  turns  up  is,  in  the  infinity  of  knowl- 

loedge,  to  know  nothing.  To  read  the  first  book  we  come 
across,  in  the  wilderness  of  books,  is  to  learn  nothing.  To 
turn  over  the  pages  of  ten  thousand  volumes  is  to  be  prac- 
tically indifferent  to  all  that  is  good. 

But  this  warns  me  that  I  am  entering  on  a  subject  which 

15  is  far  too  big  and  solemn.  It  is  plain  that  to  organise  our 
knowledge,  even  to  systematise  our  reading,  to  make  a 
working  selection  of  books  for  general  study,  really  imphes 
a  complete  scheme  of  education.  A  scheme  of  education 
ultimately  implies  a  system  of  philosophy,  a  view  of  man's 

20  duty  and  powers  as  a  moral  and  social  being — a  religion. 
Before  a  problem  so  great  as  this,  on  which  readers  have 
such  different  ideas  and  wants,  and  differ  so  profoundly 
on  the  very  premises  from  which  we  start,  before  such  a 
problem  as  a  general  theory  of  education,  I  prefer  to  pause. 

25  I  will  keep  silence  even  from  good  words.  I  have  chosen 
my  own  part,  and  adopted  my  own  teacher.  But  to  ask 
men  to  adopt  the  education  of  Auguste  Comte,  is  almost 
to  ask  them  to  adopt  Positivism  itself. 

Nor  will  I  enlarge  on  the  matter  for  thought,  for  fore- 

30  boding,  almost  for  despair,  that  is  presented  to  us  by  the 
fact  of  our  familiar  literary  ways  and  our  recognised  literary 
profession.  That  things  infinitely  trifling  in  themselves: 
men,  events,  societies,  phenomena,  in  no  way  otherwise 
more   valuable   than   the   myriad   other    things   which    flit 

35  around  us  like  the  sparrows  on  the  housetop,  should  be 
glorified,  magnified,  and  perpetuated,  set  under  a  literary 
microscope  and  focusscd  in  the  blaze  of  a  literary  magic- 


HOW  TO   READ  111 

lantern — not  for  what  they  arc  in  themselves,  but  solely 
to  amuse  and  excite  the  world  by  showing  how  it  can  be 
done — all  this  is  to  me  so  amazing,  so  heart-breaking,  that 
I  forbear  now  to  treat  it,  as  I  cannot  say  all  that  I  would. 

The  Choice  of  Books  is  really  the  choice  of  our  education,   5 
of  a  moral  and  intellectual  ideal,  of  the  whole  duty  of  man. 
But  though  I  shrink  from  any  so  high  a  theme,  a  few  words 
are  needed  to  indicate  my  general  point  of  view  in  the  matter. 

In  the  first  place,  when  we  speak  about  books,  let  us  avoid 
the  extravagance  of  expecting  too  much  from  books,  the  10 
pedant's  habit  of  extolling  books  as  synonymous  with  edu- 
cation.    Books  are  no  more  education  than  laws  are  virtue; 
and  just  as  profligacy  is  easy  within  the  strict  limits  of  law, 
a  boundless  knowledge  of  books  may  be  found  with  a  narrow 
education.     A  man  may  be,  as  the  poet  saith,  "  deep  vers'dis 
in  books,  and  shallow  in  himself."     We  need  to  know  in 
order  that  we  may  feel  rightly  and  act  wisely.     The  thirst 
after  truth  itself  may  be  pushed  to  a  degree  where  indul- 
gence enfeebles  our  sympathies  and  unnerves  us  in  action. 
Of  all  men  perhaps  the  book-lover  needs  most  to  be  reminded  20 
that  man's  business  here  is  to  know  for  the  sake  of  living, 
not  to  live  for  the  sake  of  knowing. 

A  healthy  mode  of  reading  would  follow  the  lines  of  a 
sound  education.  And  the  first  canon  of  a  sound  educa- 
tion is  to  make  it  the  instrument  to  perfect  the  whole  nature  25 
and  character.  Its  aims  are  comprehensive,  not  special; 
they  regard  life  as  a  whole,  not  mental  curiosity;  they  have 
to  give  us,  not  so  much  materials,  as  capacities.  So  that, 
however  moderate  and  limited  the  opportunity  for  educa- 
tion, in  its  way  it  should  be  always  more  or  less  symmctri-30 
cal  and  balanced,  appealing  equally  in  turn  to  the  three 
grand  intellectual  elements — imagination,  memory,  reflec- 
tion: and  so  having  something  to  give  us  in  poetry,  in 
history,  in  science,  and  in  philosophy. 

And  thus  our  reading  will  be  sadly  one-sided,  however  35 
voluminous  it  be,  if  it  entirely  close  to  us  any  of  the  great 
types  and  ideals  which  the  creative  instinct  of  man  has 


112  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

produced,  if  it  shut  out  from  us  cither  the  ancient  world,  or 
other  European  poetry,  as  important  almost  as  our  own. 
When  our  reading,  however  deep,  runs  wholly  into  "  pockets," 
and  exhausts  itself  in  the  literature  of  one  age,  one  country. 
5  one  type,  then  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  tending  to  narrow 
or  deform  our  minds.  And  the  more  it  leads  us  into  curious 
byways  and  nurtures  us  into  indifference  for  the  beaten 
highways  of  the  world,  the  sooner  we  shall  end,  if  we  be 
not  specialists  and  students  by  profession,  in   ceasing  to 

lo  treat  our  books  as  the  companions  and  solace  of  our  lifetime, 
and  in  using  them  as  the  instruments  of  a  refined  sort  of 
self-indulgence. 

A  wise  education,  and  so  judicious  reading,  should  leave  no 
great  type  of  thought,  no  dominant  phase  of  human  nature, 

15  wholly  a  blank.  Whether  our  reading  be  great  or  small, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  it  should  be  general.  If  our  lives  admit  of 
but  a  short  space  for  reading,  all  the  more  reason  that,  so 
far  as  may  be,  it  should  remind  us  of  the  vast  expanse  of 
human  thought,  and  the  wonderful  variety  of  human  nature. 

20  To  read,  and  yet  so  to  read  that  we  see  nothing  but  a  corner 
of  literature,  the  loose  fringe,  or  flats  and  wastes  of  letters, 
and  by  reading  only  deepen  our  natural  belief  that  this 
island  is  the  hub  of  the  universe,  and  the  nineteenth  century 
the  only  age  worth  notice,  all  this  is  really  to  call  in  the  aid 

25  of  books  to  thicken  and  harden  our  untaught  prejudices. 
Be  it  imagination,  memory,  or  reflection  that  we  address- 
that  is,  in  poetry,  history,  science,  or  philosophy,  our  tirst 
duty  is  to  aim  at  knowing  something  at  least  of  the  best, 
at  getting  some  definite  idea  of  the  mighty  realm   whose 

30  outer  rim  we  are  permitted  to  approach. 

But  how  are  we  to  know  the  best;  how  are  we  to  gain  this 
definite  idea  of  the  vast  world  of  letters?  There  are  some  who 
appear  to  suppose  that  the  "  best  "  are  known  only  to 
experts  in  an  esoteric  way,  who  may  reveal  to  inquirers 

35  what  schoolboys  and  betting-men  describe  as  "tips." 
There  are  no  "tips"  in  literature;  the  "best"  authors 
are    never    dark    hor.ses;     we    need    no    "  crammers   '    and 


HOW  TO  READ  113 

"  coaches  "  to  thrust  us  into  the  presence  of  the  great 
writers  of  all  time.  "  Crammers  "  will  only  lead  us  wrong. 
It  is  a  thing  far  easier  and  more  common  than  many  imagine, 
to  discover  the  best.  It  needs  no  research,  no  learning, 
and  is  only  misguided  by  recondite  information.  The  world  5 
has  long  ago  closed  the  great  assize  of  letters  and  judged  the 
first  places  everywhere.  In  such  a  matter  the  judgment 
of  the  world,  guided  and  informed  by  a  long  succession  of 
accomplished  critics,  is  almost  unerring.  When  some 
Zoilus  finds  blemishes  in  Homer,  and  prefers,  it  may  be,  10 
the  work  of  some  ApoUonius  of  his  own  discovering,  we 
only  laugh.  There  may  be  doubts  about  the  third  and 
fourth  rank;  but  the  first  and  the  second  are  hardly  open 
to  discussion.  The  gates  which  lead  to  the  Elysian  fields 
may  slowly  wheel  back  on  their  adamantine  hinges  to  admit  15 
now  and  then  some  new  and  chosen  modern.  But  the 
company  of  the  masters  of  those  who  know,  and  in  especial 
degree  of  the  great  poets,  is  a  roll  long  closed  and  complete, 
and  they  who  are  of  it  hold  ever  peaceful  converse  together. 

Hence  we  may  find  it  a  useful  maxim  that,  if  our  reading  20 
be  utterly  closed  to  the  great  poems  of  the  world,  there  is 
something  amiss  with   our  reading.     If  you  find  Milton, 
Dante,   Calderon,   Goethe,   so  much   "  Hebrew-Greek  "   to 
you;    if  your  Homer  and  Virgil,  your  Moliere  and  Scott, 
rest  year  after  year  undisturbed  on  their  shelves  beside  your  25 
school   trigonometry  and  your  old  college  text-books;    if 
you  have  never  opened  the  Cid,  the  Nibelungen,  Crusoe, 
and  Don  Quixote  since  you  were  a  boy,  and  are  wont  to  leave 
the  Bible  and  the  Imitation  for  some  wet  Sunday  after- 
noon— know,   friend,   that  your  reading  can  do  you  little  30 
real  good.     Your  mental  digestion  is  ruined  or  sadly  out  of 
order.     No  doubt,  to  thousands  of  intelligent  educated  men 
who  call  themselves  readers,  the  reading  through  a  Canto 
of  The  Piirgatorio,  or  a  Book  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  is  a  task 
as  irksome  as  it  would  be  to  decipher  an  ill-written  manu-35 
script  in  a  language  that  is  almost  forgotten.     But,  although 
we  are  not  to  be  always  reading  epics,  and  are  chiefly  in  the 


114  FREDERIC  HARRISON 

mood  for  slighter  things,  to  be  absolutely  unable  to  read 
Milton  or  Dante  with  enjoyment,  is  to  be  in  a  very  bad  way. 
Aristophanes,  Theocritus,  Boccaccio,  Cervantes,  Moliere 
are  often  as  light  as  the  driven  foam;  but  they  are  not 
5  light  enough  for  the  general  reader.  Their  humour  is  too 
bright  and  lovely  for  the  groundlings.  They  are,  alas! 
"classics,"  somewhat  apart  from  our  everyday  ways;  they 
are  not  banal  enough  for  us;  and  so  for  us  they  slumber 
"  unknown  in  a  long  night,"  just  because  they  are  immortal 

lo  poets,  and  are  not  scribblers  of  to-day. 

When  will  men  understand  that  the  reading  of  great  books 
is  a  faculty  to  be  acquired,  not  a  natural  gift,  at  least  not 
to  those  who  are  spoiled  by  our  current  education  and  habits 
of  life?   Ceci  tuera  cela}  the  last  great  poet  might  have  said 

15  of  the  first  circulating  library.  An  insatiable  appetite  for 
new  novels  makes  it  as  hard  to  read  a  masterpiece  as  it  seems 
to  a  Parisian  boulevardier  to  live  in  a  quiet  country.  Until 
a  man  can  truly  enjoy  a  draft  of  clear  water  bubbling  from  a 
mountain  side,  his  taste  is  in  an  unwholesome  state.     And  so 

20  he  who  finds  the  Heliconian  spring  insipid  should  look  to  the 
state  of  his  nerves.  Putting  aside  the  iced  air  of  the  dif- 
ficult mountain  tops  of  epic,  tragedy,  or  psalm,  there  are  some 
simple  pieces  which  may  serve  as  an  unerring  test  of  a 
healthy  or  a  vicious  taste  for  imaginative  work.     If  the  Cid, 

25  the  Vita  Nuova,  the  Canterbury  Tales,  Shakespeare's  Sonnets, 
and  Lycidas  pall  on  a  man;  if  he  care  not  for  Malory's 
Morte  d\Arthur  and  the  Red  Cross  Knight;  if  he  thinks 
Crusoe  and  the  Vicar  books  for  the  young;  if  he  thrill  not 
with  The  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  and  The  Ode  to  a  Grecian 

30  Urn;  if  he  have  no  stomach  for  Christabel  or  the  lines  written 
on  The  Wye  above  T intern  Abbey,  he  should  fall  on  his  knees 
and  pray  for  a  cleanlier  and  quieter  spirit. 

The  intellectual  system  of  most  of  us  in  these  days  needs 
"  to  purge  and  to  live  cleanly."     Only  by  a  course  of  treat- 

35  ment  shall  we  bring  our  minds  to  feel  at  peace  with  the  grand 
pure  works  of  the  world.     Something  we  ought  all  to  know 
^  This  will  destroy  that. 


HOW  TO  READ  115 

of  the  masterpieces  of  antiquity,  and  of  the  other  nations 
of  Europe.  To  understand  a  great  national  poet,  such  as 
Dante,  Calderon,  Corneille,  or  Goethe,  is  to  know  other 
types  of  human  civilisation  in  ways  which  a  library  of  his- 
tories does  not  sufficiently  teach.  The  great  masterpieces  5 
of  the  world  are  thus,  quite  apart  from  the  charm  and  solace 
they  give  us,  the  master  instruments  of  a  solid  education. 


ON  GOING   A  JOURNEY! 

William  Hazlitt 

One  of  the  pleasantest  things  in  the  world  is  going  a 
journey;  but  I  like  to  go  by  myself.  I  can  enjoy  society 
in  a  room;  but  out  of  doors,  nature  is  company  enough  for 
me.  I  am  then  never  less  alone  than  when  alone. 

5  "The  fields  his  study,  nature  was  his  book." 

I  cannot  see  the  wit  of  walking  and  talking  at  the  same 
time.  When  I  am  in  the  country,  I  wish  to  vegetate  like 
the  country.  I  am  not  for  criticising  hedge-rows  and  black 
cattle.  I  go  out  of  town  in  order  to  forget  the  town  and  all 
lothat  is  in  it.  There  are  those  who  for  this  purpose  go  to 
watering-places,  and  carry  the  metropolis  with  them.  I 
like  more  elbow-room,  and  fewer  encumbrances.  I  like 
solitude,  when  I  give  myself  up  to  it,  for  the  sake  of  solitude; 
nor  do  I  ask  for 

15  "a  friend  in  my  retreat, 

WTiom  I  may  whisper  solitude  is  sweet." 

The  soul  of  a  journey  is  liberty,  perfect  liberty,  to  think, 
feel,  do  just  as  one  pleases.  We  go  a  journey  chiefly  to  be 
free  of  all  impediments  and  of  all  inconveniences;  to  leave 
20  ourselves  behind,  much  more  to  get  rid  of  others.  It  is 
because  I  want  a  little  breathing-space  to  muse  on  indif- 
ferent matters,  where  Contemplation 

"May  plume  her  feathers  and  let  grow  her  wings, 
That  in  the  various  bustle  of  resort 
25  Were  all  too  ruflled,  and  sometimes  impair'd," 

1  From  "Table-Talk,"  1821-2. 

116 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  117 

that  I  absent  myself  from  the  town  for  a  while,  without 
feeling  at  a  loss  the  moment  I  am  left  by  myself.  Instead 
of  a  friend  in  a  postchaise  or  in  a  Tilbury,  to  exchange  good 
things  with,  and  vary  the  same  stale  topics  over  again, 
for  once  let  me  have  a  truce  with  impertinence.  Give  me  5 
the  clear  blue  sky  over  my  head,  and  the  green  turf  beneath 
my  feet,  a  winding  road  before  me,  and  a  three  hours'  march 
to  dinner — and  then  to  thinking!  It  is  hard  if  I  cannot 
start  some  game  on  these  lone  heaths.  I  laugh,  I  run,  I 
leap,  I  sing  for  joy.  From  the  point  of  yonder  rolling  cloud,  10 
I  plunge  into  my  past  being,  and  revel  there,  as  the  sun- 
burnt Indian  plunges  headlong  into  the  wave  that  wafts 
him  to  his  native  shore.  Then  long-forgotten  things, 
like  "  sunken  wrack  and  sumless  treasuries,"  burst  upon 
my  eager  sight,  and  I  begin  to  feel,  think,  and  be  myself  15 
again.  Instead  of  an  awkward  silence,  broken  by  attempts 
at  wit  or  dull  commonplaces,  mine  is  that  undisturbed 
silence  of  the  heart  which  alone  is  perfect  eloquence.  No 
one  likes  puns,  alliterations,  antitheses,  arguments,  and 
analysis  better  than  1  do;  but  I  sometimes  had  rather  be  20 
without  them.  "Leave,  oh,  leave  me  to  my  repose!" 
I  have  just  now  other  business  in  hand,  which  would  seem 
idle  to  you,  but  is  with  me  "  very  stuff  of  the  conscience." 
Is  not  this  wild  rose  sweet  without  a  comment?  Does  not 
this  daisy  leap  to  my  heart  set  in  its  coat  of  emerald.  Yet  25 
if  I  were  to  explain  to  you  the  circumstance  that  has  so 
endeared  it  to  me,  you  would  only  smile.  Had  I  not  better 
then  keep  it  to  myself,  and  let  it  serve  me  to  brood  over, 
from  here  to  yonder  craggy  point,  and  from  thence  onward  to 
the  far-distant  horizon?  I  should  be  but  bad  company  all  30 
that  way,  and  therefore  prefer  being  alone.  I  have  heard 
it  said  that  you  may,  when  the  moody  fit  comes  on,  walk 
or  ride  on  by  yourself,  and  indulge  your  reveries.  But 'this 
looks  like  a  breach  of  manners,  a  neglect  of  others,  and  you 
are  thinking  all  the  time  that  you  ought  to  rejoin  your  35 
party.  "  Out  upon  such  half- faced  fellowship,"  say  I-  I 
like  to  be  either  entirely  to  myself,  or  entirely  at  the  disposal 


118  WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

of  others;  to  talk  or  be  silent,  to  walk  or  sit  still,  to  be  sociable 
or  solitary.  I  was  pleased  with  an  observation  of  Mr. 
Cobbett's  that  "  he  thought  it  a  bad  French  custom  to 
drink  our  wine  with  our  meals,  and  that  an  Englishman 
sought  to  do  only  one  thing  at  a  time."  So  I  cannot  talk 
and  think,  or  indulge  in  melancholy  musing  and  livel}' 
conversation  by  fits  and  starts.  "  Let  me  have  a  companion 
of  my  way,"  savs  Sterne,  "  were  it  but  to  remark  how  the 
shadows  lengthen  as  the  sun  declines."     It  is  beautifully 

I o said:  but  in  my  opinion,  this  continual  comparing  of  notes 
interferes  with  the  involuntary  impression  of  things  upon 
the  mind,  and  hurts  the  sentiment.  If  you  only  hint  what 
you  feel  in  a  kind  of  dumb  show,  it  is  insipid:  if  you  have 
to  explain  it,  it  is  making  a  toil  of  a  pleasure.     You  cannot 

15  read  the  book  of  nature,  without  being  perpetually  put 
to  the  trouble  of  translating  it  for  the  benefit  of  others. 
I  am  for  the  synthetical  method  on  a  journey,  in  preference 
to  the  analytical.  I  am  content  to  lay  in  a  stock  of  ideas 
then,  and  to  examine  and  anatomise  them  afterwards.     I 

20  want  to  see  my  vague  notions  float  like  the  down  of  the 
thistle  before  the  breeze,  and  not  to  have  them  entangled 
in  the  briars  and  thorns  of  controversy.  For  once,  I  like 
to  have  it  all  my  own  way;  and  this  is  impossible  unless 
you  are  alone,  or  in  such  company  as  I  do  not  covet.     I 

25  have  no  objection  to  argue  a  point  with  any  one  for  twenty 
miles  of  measured  road,  but  not  for  pleasure.  If  you  remark 
the  scent  of  a  beanfield  crossing  the  road,  perhaps  your 
fellow-traveller  has  no  smell.  If  you  point  to  a  distant 
object,  perhaps  he  is  short-sighted,  and  has  to  take  out  his 

30  glass  to  look  at  it.  There  is  a  feeling  in  the  air,  a  tone  in 
the  colour  of  a  cloud  which  hits  your  fancy,  but  the  elTect 
of  which  you  are  unable  to  account  for.  There  is  then  no 
sympathy,  but  an  uneasy  craving  after  it,  and  a  dissatisfac- 
tion which  pursues  you  on  the  way,  and  in  the  end  probably 

35  produces  ill  humour.  Now  I  never  quarrel  with  myself, 
and  take  all  my  own  conclusions  for  granted  till  I  find  it 
necessary   to   defend   them   against   objections.     It   is   not 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  119 

merely  that  you  may  not  be  of  accord  on  the  objects  and 
circumstances  that  present  themselves  before  you — these 
may  recall  a  number  of  objects,  and  lead  to  associations  too 
delicate  and  refined  to  be  possibly  communicated  to  others. 
Yet  these  I  love  to  cherish,  and  sometimes  still  fondly  S 
clutch  them,  when  I  can  escape  from  the  throng  to  do  so. 
To  give  way  to  our  feelings  before  company,  seems  extrava- 
gance or  affectation;  and  on  the  other  hand,  to  have  to 
unravel  this  mystery  of  our  being  at  every  turn,  and  to  make 
others  take  an  equal  interest  in  it  (otherwise  the  end  is  not  lo 
answered)  is  a  task  to  which  few  are  competent.  We  must 
"  give  it  an  understanding,  but  no  tongue."     My  old  friend 

C ,  however,  could  do  both.     He  could  go  on  in  the 

most  delightful  explanatory  way  over  hill  and  dale,  a  sum- 
mer's day,  and  convert  a  landscape  into  a  didactic  poem  15 
or  a  Pindaric  ode.  "  He  talked  far  above  singing."  If  I 
could  so  clothe  my  ideas  in  sounding  and  flowing  words, 
I  might  perhaps  wish  to  have  some  one  with  me  to  admire 
the  swelling  theme;  or  I  could  be  more  content,  were  it 
possible  for  me  still  to  hear  his  echoing  voice  in  the  woods  20 
of  All-P'oxden.  They  had  "  that  fine  madness  in  them  which 
our  first  poets  had;"  and  if  they  could  have  been  caught 
by  some  rare  instrument,  would  have  breathed  such  strains 
as  the  following. 

"Here  be  woods  as  green  25 

As  any,  air  likewise  as  fresh  and  sweet 

As  when  smooth  Zephyrus  plays  on  the  fleet 

Face  of  the  curled  stream,  with  flow'rs  as  many 

As  the  young  spring  gives,  and  as  choice  as  any; 

Here  be  all  new  delights,  cool  streams  and  wells,  3° 

Arbours  o'ergrown  with  woodbine,  caves  and  dells; 

Choose  where  thou  wilt,  while  I  sit  by  and  sing, 

Or  gather  rushes  to  make  many  a  ring 

For  thy  long  fingers;  tell  thee  talcs  of  love, 

How  the  pale  Phoebe,  hunting  in  a  grove,  35 

First  saw  the  boy  End3mion,  from  whose  eyes 

She  took  eternal  fire  that  never  dies; 

How  she  convey'd  him  softly  in  a  sleep. 

His  temples  bound  with  i)oppy,  to  the  steep 


120  WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

Head  of  old  Latmos,  where  she  stoops  each  night, 
Gilding  the  mountain  with  her  brother's  light, 

To  kiss  her  sweetest." 

Faithful  Shepherdess. 

5  Had  I  words  and  images  at  command  like  these,  I  would 
attempt  to  wake  the  thoughts  that  lie  slumbering  on  golden 
ridges  in  the  evening  clouds:  but  at  the  sight  of  nature 
my  fancy,  poor  as  it  is,  droops  and  closes  up  its  leaves, 
like  flowers  at  sunset.     I  can  make  nothing  out  on  the  spot : — 

lo  I  must  have  time  to  collect  myself. — 

In   general,   a  good   thing   spoils   out-of-door  prospects: 

it  should  be  reserved  for  Table-talk.     L is  for  this 

reason,  I  take  it,  the  worst  company  in  the  world  out  of 
doors;   because  he  is  the  best  within.     I  grant,  there  is  one 

15  subject  on  which  it  is  pleasant  to  talk  on  a  journey;  and 
that  is,  what  one  shall  have  for  supper  when  we  get  to  our 
inn  at  night.  The  open  air  improves  this  sort  of  conversa- 
tion or  friendly  altercation,  by  setting  a  keener  edge  on 
appetite.     Every  mile  of  the  road  heightens   the  flavour 

20  of  the  viands  we  expect  at  the  end  of  it.  How  fine  it  is 
to  enter  some  old  town,  walled  and  turreted,  just  at  the 
approach  of  nightfall,  or  to  come  to  some  straggling  village, 
with  the  lights  streaming  through  the  surrounding  gloom; 
and  then  after  inquiring  for  the  best  entertainment  that  the 

25  place  affords,  to  "take  one's  ease  at  one's  inni"  These 
eventful  moments  in  our  lives'  history  are  too  precious, 
too  full  of  solid,  heartfelt  happiness  to  be  frittered  and 
dribbled  away  in  imperfect  sympathy.  I  would  have  them 
all  to  myself,  and  drain  them  to  the  last  drop:     they  will 

30  do  to  talk  of  or  to  write  about  afterwards.  What  a  delicate 
speculation  it  is,  after  drinking  whole  goblets  of  tea, 

"The  cups  that  cheer,  but  not  inebriate," 

and  letting  the  fumes  ascend  into  the  brain,  to  sit  consider- 
ing what  we  shall  have  for  supper — eggs  and  a  rasher,  a 
35  rabbit    smothered    in    onions,    or   an    excellent    veal-cutlet: 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  121 

Sancho  ^  in  such  a  situation  once  fixed  upon  cow-heel; 
and  his  choice,  though  he  could  not  help  it,  is  not  to  be 
disparaged.  Then  in  the  intervals  of  pictured  scenery  and 
Shandean  contemplation,  to  catch  the  preparation  and  the 
stir  in  the  kitchen — Procul,  0  procul  esie  projani!  ^  These  5 
hours  are  sacred  to  silence  and  to  musing,  to  be  treasured 
up  in  the  memory,  and  to  feed  the  source  of  smiling  thoughts 
hereafter.  I  would  not  waste  them  in  idle  talk;  or  if  I 
must  have  the  integrity  of  fancy  broken  in  upon,  I  would 
rather  it  were  by  a  stranger  than  a  friend.  A  stranger  lo 
takes  his  hue  and  character  from  the  time  and  place;  he 
is  a  part  of  the  furniture  and  costume  of  an  inn.  If  he  is  a 
Quaker,  or  from  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  so  much 
the  better.  I  do  not  even  try  to  sympathise  with  him,  and 
he  breaks  no  squares.  I  associate  nothing  with  my  travelling  15 
companion  but  present  objects  and  passing  events.  In 
his  ignorance  of  me  and  my  affairs,  I  in  a  manner  forget 
myself.  But  a  friend  reminds  one  of  other  things,  rips  up 
old  grievances,  and  destroys  the  abstraction  of  the  scene. 
lie  comes  in  ungraciously  between  us  and  our  imaginary  20 
character.  Something  is  dropped  in  the  course  of  conversa- 
tion that  gives  a  hint  of  your  profession  and  pursuits;  or 
from  having  some  one  with  you  that  knows  the  less  sublime 
portions  of  your  history,  it  seems  that  other  people  do.  You 
are  no  longer  a  citizen  of  the  world:  but  your  "  unhoused  25 
free  condition  is  put  into  circumscription  and  confine." 
The  incognito  of  an  inn  is  one  of  its  striking  privileges — 
"  lord  of  one's  self,  uncumber'd  with  a  name."  Oh!  it  is 
great  to  shake  off  the  trammels  of  the  world  and  of  public 
opinion — to  lose  our  imjiortunate,  tormenting,  everlasting  30 
personal  identity  in  the  elements  of  nature,  and  become  the 
creature  of  the  moment,  clear  of  all  ties — to  hold  to  the 
universe  only  by  a  dish  of  sweet-breads,  and  to  owe  nothing 
but  the  score  of  the  evening — and  no  longer  seeking  for 
applause  and  meeting  with  contempt,  to  be  known  by  no  35 

'  Sancho  Panza,  a  character  in  Cervantes'  romance,  "Don  Quixote." 
^  .Moof,  O  keep  aloof,  ye  unitiatcd  ! 


122  WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

other  title  than  the  Gentleman  in  the  parlour!  One  may- 
take  one's  choice  of  all  characters  in  this  romantic  state  of 
uncertainty  as  to  one's  real  pretensions,  and  become  indef- 
initely respectable  and  negatively  right  worshipful.  We 
S  baffle  prejudice  and  disappoint  conjecture;  and  from  being 
so  to  others,  begin  to  be  objects  of  curiosity  and  wonder 
even  to  ourselves.  We  are  no  more  those  hackneyed  com- 
monplaces that  we  appear  in  the  world:  an  inn  restores  us 
to  the  level  of  nature,  and  quits  scores  with  society!   I  have 

lo  certainly  spent  some  enviable  hours  at  inns — sometimes 
when  I  have  been  left  entirely  to  myself,  and  have  tried  to 
solve  some  metaphysical  problem,  as  once  at  Witham- 
common,  where  I  found  out  the  proof  that  likeness  is  not 
a  case  of  the  association  of  ideas — at  other  times,  when  there 

15  have  been  pictures  in  the  room,  as  at  St.  Neot's  (I  think 
it  was)  where  I  first  met  with  Gribelin's  engravings  of  the 
Cartoons,  into  which  I  entered  at  once,  and  at  a  little  inn 
on  the  borders  of  Wales,  where  there  happened  to  be  hanging 
some  of  Westall's  drawings,  which  I  compared  triumphantly 

20  (for  a  theory  that  I  had,  not  for  the  admired  artist)  with 
the  figure  of  a  girl  who  had  ferried  me  over  the  Severn, 
standing  up  in  the  boat  between  me  and  the  twilight — at 
other  times  I  might  mention  luxuriating  in  books,  with  a 
pecuHar  interest  in  this  way,  as  I  remember  sitting  up  half 

25  the  night  to  read  Paul  and  Virginia,  which  I  picked  up  at 
an  inn  at  Bridgewater,  after  being  drenched  in  the  rain  all 
day;  and  at  the  same  place  I  got  through  two  volumes  of 
Madame  D'Arblay's  Camilla.  It  was  on  the  tenth  of  April, 
1798,  that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  of  the  New  Eloise,  at  the 

30  inn  at  Llangollen,  over  a  bottle  of  sherry  and  a  cold  chicken. 
The  letter  I  chose  was  that  in  which  St.  Preux  describes 
his  feelings  as  he  first  caught  a  glimpse  from  the  heights  of 
the  Jura  of  the  Pays  de  Vaud,  which  I  had  brought  with 
me  as  a  bon  bouche  \  to  crown  the  evening  with.     It  was  my 

35  birthday,  and  I  had  for  the  first  time  come  from  a  place  in 
the  neighbourhood  to  visit  this  delightful  spot.    The  road 

^  A  titbit. 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  123 

to  Llangollen  turns  oflf  between  Chirk  and  Wrexham;  and 
on  passing  a  certain  point,  you  come  all  at  once  upon  the 
valley,  which  opens  like  an  amphitheatre,  broad,  barren 
hills  rising  in  majestic  state  on  either  side,  with  "  green  upland 
swells  that  echo  to  the  bleat  of  flocks"  below,  and  the  river  5 
Dee  babbling  over  its  stony  bed  in  the  midst  of  them.  The 
valley  at  this  time  "  glittered  green  with  sunny  showers," 
and  a  budding  ash-tree  dipped  its  tender  branches  in  the 
chiding  stream.  How  proud,  how  glad  I  was  to  walk  along 
the  high  road  that  overlooks  the  delicious  prospect,  repeating  10 
the  lines  which  I  have  just  quoted  from  Mr.  Coleridge's 
poems!  But  besides  the  prospect  which  opened  beneath 
my  feet,  another  also  opened  to  my  inward  sight,  a  heavenly 
vision,  on  which  were  written,  in  letters  large  as  Hope  could 
make  them,  these  four  words.  Liberty,  Genius,  Love,  15 
Virtue;  which  have  since  faded  into  the  light  of  common 
day,  or  mock  my  idle  gaze. 

"The  beautiful  is  vanished,  and  returns  not." 

Still  I  would  return  some  time  or  other  to  this  enchanted  spot; 
but  I  would  return  to  it  alone.     What  other  self  could  1 20 
find  to  share  that  influx  of  thoughts,  of  regret,  and  delight, 
the  fragments  of  which  I  could  hardly  conjure  up  to  myself, 
so  much  have  they  been  broken  and  defaced!   I  could  stand 
on  some  tall  rock,  and  overlook  the  precipice  of  years  that 
separates  me  from  what  I  then  was.     I  was  at  that  time  25 
going  shortly  to  visit  the  poet  whom  I  have  above  named. 
Where  is  he  now?     Not  only  I  myself  have  changed;    the 
world,  which  was  then  new  to  me,  has  become  old  and 
incorrigible.     Yet  will  I  turn  to  thee  in  thought,  O  sylvan 
Dee,  in  joy,  in  youth  and  gladness  as  thou  then  wert;   and  30 
thou  shalt  always  be  to  me  the  river  of  Paradise,  where  I 
will  drink  of  the  waters  of  life  freely! 

There  is  hardly  any  thing  that  shows  the  short-sightedness 
or  capriciousness  of  the  imagination   more  than  travelling 
does.     With  change  of  place  we  change  our  ideas;   nay,  our  35 
opinions  and  feelings.     We  can  by  an  effort  indeed  transport 


124  WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

ourselves  to  old  and  long-forgotten  scenes,  and  then  the 
picture  of  the  mind  revives  again;  but  we  forget  those  that 
we  have  just  left.  It  seems  that  we  can  think  but  of  one 
place  at  a  time.  The  canvas  of  the  fancy  is  but  of  a  certain 
5  extent,  and  if  we  paint  one  set  of  objects  upon  it,  they 
immediately  efface  every  other.  We  cannot  enlarge  our 
conceptions,  we  only  shift  our  point  of  view.  The  land- 
scape bares  its  bosom  to  the  enraptured  eye,  we  take  our  fill 
of  it,  and  seem  as  if  we  could  form  no  other  image  of  beauty 

loor  grandeur.  We  pass  on,  and  think  no  more  of  it:  the 
horizon  that  shuts  it  from  our  sight,  also  blots  it  from  our 
memory  like  a  dream.  In  travelling  through  a  wild  barren 
country,  I  can  form  no  idea  of  a  woody  and  cultivated 
one.     It  appears  to  me  that  all  the  world  must  be  barren, 

15  like  what  I  see  of  it.  In  the  country  we  forget  the  town, 
and  in  town  w^e  despise  the  country.  "  Beyond  Hyde  Park," 
says  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,  "all  is  a  desert."  All  that  part 
of  the  map  that  we  do  not  see  before  us  is  a  blank.  The 
world  in  our  conceit  of  it  is  not  much  bigger  than  a  nutshell. 

20  It  is  not  one  prospect  expanded  into  another,  county  joined 
to  county,  kingdom  to  kingdom,  lands  to  seas,  making  an 
image  voluminous  and  vast; — the  mind  can  form  no  larger 
idea  of  space  than  the  eye  can  take  in  at  a  single  glance. 
The  rest  is  a   name   written   in   a   map,   a   calculation   of 

25  arithmetic.  For  instance,  what  is  the  true  signification 
of  that  immense  mass  of  territory  and  population,  known 
by  the  name  of  China,  to  us?  An  inch  of  paste-board  on 
a  wooden  globe,  of  no  more  account  than  a  China  orange  1 
Things  near  us  are  seen  of   the  size  of  life:    things  at  a 

30  distance  are  diminished  to  the  size  of  the  understanding. 
We  measure  the  universe  by  ourselves,  and  even  compre- 
hend the  texture  of  our  own  being  only  piecemeal.  In 
this  way,  however,  we  remember  an  infinity  of  things  and 
places.     The   mind   is   like   a   mechanical   instrument   that 

35  plays  a  great  variety  of  tunes,  but  it  must  play  them  in 
succession.  One  idea  recalls  another,  but  it  at  the  same  time 
excludes  all  others.     In  trying  to  renew  old  recollections, 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  125 

we  cannot  as  it  were  unfold  the  whole  web  of  our  existence; 
we  must  pick  out  the  single  threads.  So  in  coming  to  a 
place  where  we  have  formerly  lived  and  with  which  we 
have  intimate  associations,  every  one  must  have  found  that 
the  feeling  grows  more  vivid  the  nearer  we  approach  the  5 
spot,  from  the  mere  anticipation  of  the  actual  impression: 
we  remember  circumstances,  feelings,  persons,  faces,  names, 
that  we  had  not  thought  of  for  years;  but  for  the  time  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  is  forgotten! 

To  return  to  the  question  I  have  quitted  above.  1 10 
have  no  objection  to  go  to  see  ruins,  aqueducts,  pictures, 
in  company  with  a  friend  or  a  party,  but  rather  the  con- 
trary, for  the  former  reason  reversed.  They  are  intelligible 
matters,  and  will  bear  talking  about.  The  sentiment  here 
is  not  tacit,  but  communicable  and  overt.  Salisbury  Plain  15 
is  barren  of  criticism,  but  Stonehengc  will  bear  a  discussion 
antiquarian,  picturesque,  and  philosophical.  In  setting 
out  on  a  party  of  pleasure,  the  first  consideration  always 
is  where  we  shall  go  to;  in  taking  a  solitary  ramble,  the 
question  is  what  we  shall  meet  with  by  the  way.  "  The  20 
mind  is  its  own  place;"  nor  are  we  anxious  to  arrive  at 
the  end  of  our  journey.  I  can  myself  do  the  honours 
indifferently  well  to  works  of  art  and  curiosity.  I  once 
took  a  party  to  Oxford  with  no  mean  eclal — showed  them 
that  seat  of  the  Muses  at  a  distance,  25 

"With  glislering  spire?  and  j)inn;ules  adorn'd" — 

descanted  on  the  learned  air  that  breathes  from  the  grassy 
quadrangles  and  stone  walls  of  halls  and  colleges — was  at 
home  in  the  Bodleian;  and  at  iilenheim  quite  superseded 
the  powdered  Ciceroni  that  attended  us,  and  that  pointed  30 
in  vain  with  his  wand  to  commonplace  beauties  in  match- 
less pictures. — As  another  exception  to  the  above  reasoning, 
I  should  not  feel  confident  in  venturing  on  a  journey  in  a 
foreign  country  without  a  companion.  I  should  want  at 
intervals  to  hear  the  sound  of  my  own  language.  There  is  35 
an  involuntary  antij:)athy  in  the  mind  of  an  Englishman  to 


126  WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

foreign  manners  and  notions  that  requires  the  assistance 
of  social  sympathy  to  carry  it  off.  As  the  distance  from 
home  increases,  this  relief,  which  was  at  first  a  luxury, 
becomes  a  passion  and  an  appetite.  A  person  would  almost 
5  feel  stifled  to  find  himself  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia  without 
friends  and  countrymen:  there  must  be  allowed  to  be  some- 
thing in  the  view  of  Athens  or  old  Rome  that  claims  the 
utterance  of  speech;  and  I  own  that  the  Pyramids  are  too 
mighty  for  any  single  contemplation.     In  such  situations, 

loso  opposite  to  all  one's  ordinary  tra,in  of  ideas,  one  seems 
a  species  by  one's  self,  a  limb  torn  off  from  society,  unless 
one  can  meet  with  instant  fellowship  and  support. — Yet  I 
did  not  feel  this  want  or  craving  very  pressing  once,  when 
I  first  set  my  foot  on  the  laughing  shores  of  France.     Calais 

IS  was  peopled  with  novelty  and  delight.  The  confused,  busy 
murmur  of  the  place  was  like  oil  and  wine  poured  into  my 
ears;  nor  did  the  mariners'  hymn,  which  was  sung  from 
the  top  of  an  old  crazy  vessel  in  the  harbour,  as  the  sun 
went   down,    send   an   alien    sound   into   my   soul.     I  only 

20  breathed  the  air  of  general  humanity.  I  walked  over  "  the 
vine-covered  hills  and  gay  regions  of  France,"  erect  and 
satisfied;  for  the  image  of  man  was  not  cast  down  and 
chained  to  the  foot  of  arbitrary  thrones:  I  was  at  no  loss 
for  language,  for  that  of  all  the  great  schools  of  painting 

25  was  open  to  me.  The  whole  is  vanished  like  a  shade. 
Pictures,  heroes,  glory,  freedom,  all  are  fled:  nothing 
remains  but  the  Bourbons  and  the  French  people: — There 
is  undoubtedly  a  sensation  in  travelling  into  foreign  parts 
that  is  to  be  had  nowhere  else:    but  it  is  more  pleasing  at 

30  the  time  than  lasting.  It  is  too  remote  from  our  habitual 
associations  to  be  a  common  topic  of  discourse  or  reference, 
and,  like  a  dream  or  another  state  of  existence,  does  not 
piece  into  our  daily  modes  of  life.  It  is  an  animated  but  a 
momentary  hallucination.     It  demands  an  effort  to  exchange 

35  our  actual  for  our  ideal  identity;  and  to  feel  the  pulse  of 
our  old  transports  revive  very  keenly,  we  must  "jump" 
all   our   present  comforts   and  connections.     Our  romantic 


ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY  127 

and  itinerant  character  is  not  to  be  domesticated.  Dr, 
Johnson  remarked  how  Httle  foreign  travel  added  to  the 
facilities  of  conversation  in  those  who  had  been  abroad.  In 
fact,  the  time  we  have  spent  there  is  both  delightful  and 
in  one  sense  instructive;  but  it  appears  to  be  cut  out  of  s 
our  substantial,  downright  existence,  and  never  to  join 
kindly  on  to  it.  We  are  not  the  same,  but  another,  and 
perhaps  more  enviable  individual,  all  the  time  we  are  out 
of  our  own  country.  We  are  lost  to  ourselves,  as  well  as 
our  friends.     So  the  poet  somewhat  quaintly  sings,  lo 

"Out  of  my  country  and  myself  I  go." 

Those  who  wish  to  forget  painful  thoughts,  do  well  to  absent 
themselves  for  a  while  from  the  ties  and  objects  that  recall 
them:  but  we  can  be  said  only  to  fulfil  our  destiny  in  the 
place  that  gave  us  birth.  I  should  on  this  account  like  well  15 
enough  to  spend  the  whole  of  my  life  in  travelling  abroad, 
if  I  could  any  where  borrow  another  life  to  spend  afterwards 
at  home! 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  i 

Leslie  Stephen 

I  HAVE  often  felt  a  sympathy,  which  almost  rises  to  the 
pathetic,  when  looking  on  at  a  cricket-match  or  boat- 
race.  Something  of  the  emotion  with  which  Gray  regarded 
the  "  distant  spires  and  antique  towers"  rises  within  me. 
5  It  is  not,  indeed,  that  I  feel  very  deeply  for  the  fine  ingenuous 
lads  who,  as  somebody  says,  are  about  to  be  degraded  into 
tricky,  selfish  Members  of  Parliament.  I  have  seen  too 
much  of  them.  They  are  very  fine  animals;  but  they  are 
rather  too  exclusively  animal.     The  soul  is  apt  to  be  in  too 

lo  embryonic  a  state  within  these  cases  of  well-strung  bone  and 
muscle.  It  is  impossible  for  a  mere  athletic  machine, 
however  finely  constructed,  to  appeal  very  deeply  to  one's 
finer  sentiments.  I  can  scarcely  look  forward  with  even 
an  affectation  of  sorrow  for  the  time  when,  if  more  sophis- 

15  ticated,  it  will  at  least  have  made  a  nearer  approach  to  the 
dignity  of  an  intellectual  being.  It  is  not  the  boys  who 
make  me  feel  a  touch  of  sadness;  their  approachmg  eleva- 
tion to  the  dignity  of  manhood  will  raise  them  on  the  whole 
in  the  scale  of  humanity;    it  is  the  older  spectators  whose 

20  aspect  has  in  it  something  affecting.  The  shaky  old  gentle- 
man, who  played  in  the  days  when  it  was  decidedly  less 
dangerous  to  stand  up  to  bowling  than  to  a  cannon-ball, 
and  who  now  hobbles  about  on  rheumatic  joints,  by  the 
help  of  a  stick;   the  corpulent  elder,  who  rowed  when  boats 

25  had  gangways  down  their  middle,  and  did  not  require  as 
delicate  a  balance  as  an  acrobat's  at  the  top  of  a  living 
pyramid — these  are  the  persons  whom  I  cannot  see  without 

'  From  "The  Plaj'ground  of  Europe,"  1S71. 

128 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  129 

an  occasional  sigh.  They  are  really  conscious  that  they  have 
lost  something  which  they  can  never  regain;  or,  if  they 
momentarily  forget  it,  it  is  even  more  forcibly  impressed 
upon  the  spectators.  To  see  a  respectable  old  gentleman 
of  sixty,  weighing  some  fifteen  stone,  suddenly  forget  a  5 
third  of  his  weight  and  two-thirds  of  his  years,  and  attempt 
to  caper  like  a  boy,  is  indeed  a  startling  phenomenon.  To 
the  thoughtless,  it  may  be  simply  comic;  but,  without  being 
a  Jaques,  one  may  contrive  also  to  suck  some  melancholy 
out  of  it.  lo 

Now,  as  I  have  never  caught  a  cricket-ball,  and,  on  the 
contrary,  have  caught  numerous  crabs  in  my  life,  the 
sympathy  which  I  feel  for  these  declining  athletes  is  not 
due  to  any  great  personal  interest  in  the  matter.  But  I 
have  long  anticipated  that  a  similar  day  would  come  for  me,  15 
when  I  should  no  longer  be  able  to  pursue  my  favourite  sport 
of  mountaineering.  Some  day  1  should  find  that  the  ascent 
of  a  zigzag  was  as  bad  as  a  performance  on  the  treadmill; 
that  I  could  not  look  over  a  precipice  without  a  swimming 
in  the  head;  and  that  I  could  no  more  jump  a  crevasse  20 
than  the  Thames  at  Westminster.  None  of  these  things 
have  come  to  pass.  So  far  as  I  know,  my  physical  powers 
are  still  equal  to  the  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc  or  the  Jungfrau. 
But  I  am  no  less  effectually  debarred — it  matters  not  how — 
from  mountaineering.  I  wander  at  the  foot  of  the  gigantic  25 
Alps,  and  look  up  longingly  to  the  summits,  which  are 
apparently  so  near,  and  yet  know  that  they  are  divided 
from  me  by  an  impassable  gulf.  In  some  missionary  work 
I  have  read  that  certain  South  Sea  Islanders  believed  in  a 
future  paradise  where  the  good  should  go  on  eating  for  ever  30 
with  insatiable  appetites  at  an  inexhaustible  banquet. 
They  were  to  continue  their  eternal  dinner  in  a  house  with 
open  wickerwork  sides;  and  it  was  to  be  the  punishrhent 
of  the  damned  to  crawl  outside  in  perpetual  hunger  and  look 
in  through  the  chinks  as  little  boys  look  in  through  the 35 
windows  of  a  London  cookshop.  With  similar  feelings 
I  lately  watched  through  a  telescope  the  small  black  dots, 


130  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

which  were  really  men,  creeping  up  the  high  flanks  of  Mont 
Blanc  or  Monte  Rosa.  The  eternal  snows  represented  for 
me  the  Elysian  fields,  into  which  entrance  was  sternly  for- 
bidden, and  I  lingered  about  the  spot  with  a  mixture  of 
5  pleasure  and  pain,  in  the  envious  contemplation  of  my 
more  fortunate  companions. 

I  know  there  are  those  who  will  receive  these  assertions 
with  civil  incredulity.  Some  persons  assume  that  every 
pleasure  with  which  they  cannot  sympathise  is  necessarily 

I o  affectation,  and  hold,  as  a  particular  case  of  that  doctrine, 
that  Alpine  travellers  risk  their  lives  merely  from  fashion  or 
desire  of  notoriety.  Others  are  kind  enough  to  admit  that 
there  is  something  genuine  in  the  passion,  but  put  it  on  a 
level  with  the  passion  for  climbing  greased  poles.     They 

IS  think  it  derogatory  to  the  due  dignity  of  Mont  Blanc  that 
he  should  be  used  as  a  greased  pole,  and  assure  us  that  the 
true  pleasures  of  the  Alps  are  those  which  are  within  reach 
of  the  old  and  the  invalids,  who  can  only  creep  about  villages 
and  along  high-roads.     I  cannot  well  argue  with  such  detrac- 

20  tors  from  what  I  consider  a  noble  sport.  As  for  the  first 
class,  it  is  reduced  almost  to  a  question  of  veracity.  I  say 
that  I  enjoy  being  on  the  top  of  a  mountain,  or,  indeed, 
halfway  up  a  mountain;  that  climbing  is  a  pleasure  to  me, 
and  would  be  so  if  no  one  else  climbed  and  no  one  ever  heard 

25  of  my  climbing.  They  reply  that  they  don't  believe  it. 
No  more  argument  is  possible  than  if  I  were  to  say  that  I 
liked  eating  olives,  and  some  one  asserted  that  I  really  eat 
them  only  out  of  affectation.  My  reply  would  be  simply 
to  go  on  eating  olives;  and  I  hope  the  reply  of  mountaineers 

30  will  be  to  go  on  climbing  Alps.  The  other  assault  is  more 
intelligible.  Our  critics  admit  that  we  have  a  pleasure; 
'but  assert  that  it  is  a  puerile  pleasure—that  it  leads  to  an 
irreverent  view  of  mountain  beauty,  and  to  oversight  of 
that  which  should  really  most  impress  a  refined  and  noble 

35  mind.  To  this  I  shall  only  make  such  an  indirect  reply 
as  may  result  from  a  frank  confession  of  my  own  regrets 
at  giving  up  the  climbing  business — perhaps  for  ever.     I 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    131 

am  sinking,  so  to  speak,  from  the  butterfly  to  the  cater- 
pillar stage,  and,  if  the  creeping  thing  is  really  the  highest 
of  the  two,  it  will  appear  that  there  is  something  in  the 
substance  of  my  lamentations  unworthy  of  an  intellectual 
being.  Let  me  try.  By  way  of  preface,  however,  I  admit  S 
that  mountaineering,  in  my  sense  of  the  word,  is  a  sport. 
It  is  a  sport  which,  like  fishing  or  shooting,  brings  one  into 
contact  with  the  sublimest  aspects  of  nature;  and,  without 
setting  their  enjoyment  before  one  as  an  ultimate  end  or  aim, 
helps  one  indirectly  to  absorb  and  be  penetrated  by  their  lo 
influence.  Still  it  is  strictly  a  sport — as  strictly  as  cricket, 
or  rowing,  or  knurr  and  spell — and  I  have  no  wish  to  place 
it  on  a  different  footing.  The  game  is  won  when  a  moun- 
tain-top is  reached  in  spite  of  difficulties;  it  is  lost  when  one 
is  forced  to  retreat;  and,  whether  won  or  lost,  it  calls  into  15 
play  a  great  variety  of  physical  and  intellectual  energies, 
and  gives  the  pleasure  which  always  accompanies  an  energetic 
use  of  our  faculties.  Still  it  suffers  in  some  degree  from  this 
undeniable  characteristic,  and  especially  from  the  tinge 
which  has  consequently  been  communicated  to  narratives  20 
of  mountain  adventures.  There  are  two  ways  which  have 
been  appropriated  to  the  description  of  all  sporting  exploits. 
One  is  to  indulge  in  fme  writing  about  them,  to  burst  out 
in  sentences  which  swell  to  paragraphs,  and  in  paragraphs 
which  spread  over  pages;  to  plunge  into  ecstasies  about  25 
infinite  abysses  and  overpowering  splendours,  to  compare 
mountains  to  archangels  lying  down  in  eternal  winding- 
sheets  of  snow,  and  to  convert  them  into  allegories  about 
man's  highest  destinies  and  aspirations.  This  is  good  when 
it  is  well  done.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  covered  the  Matterhorn,3o 
for  example,  with  a  whole  web  of  poetical  associations,  in 
language  w^hich,  to  a  severe  taste,  is  perhaps  a  trifle  too  fine, 
though  he  has  done  it  with  an  eloquence  which  his  bitterest 
antagonists  must  freely  acknowledge.  Yet  most  humble 
writers  will  feel  that  if  they  try  to  imitate  Mr.  Ruskin'sss 
eloquence  they  will  pay  the  penalty  of  becoming  ridiculous. 
It  is  not  every  one  who  can  witli  impunity  compare  Alps 


132  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

to  archangels.  Tall  talk  is  luckily  an  object  of  suspicion 
to  Englishmen,  and  consequently  most  writers,  and  especially 
those  who  frankly  adopt  the  sporting  view  of  the  mountains, 
adopt  the  opposite  scheme:  they  affect  something  like 
S  cynicism;  they  mix  descriptions  of  scenery  with  allusions 
to  fleas  or  to  bitter  beer;  they  shrink  with  the  prevailing 
dread  of  Englishmen  from  the  danger  of  overstepping  the 
limits  of  the  sublime  into  its  proverbial  opposite;  and 
they  humbly  try  to  amuse   us  because  they  can't  strike 

lo  us  with  awe.  This,  too,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  is  good 
in  its  way  and  place;  and  it  seems  rather  hard  to  these  luck- 
less writers  when  people  assume  that,  because  they  make 
jokes  on  a  mountain,  they  are  necessarily  insensible  to  its 
awful  sublimities.     A  sense  of  humour  is  not  incompatible 

15  with  imaginative  sensibilty;  and  even  Wordsworth  might 
have  been  an  equally  powerful  prophet  of  nature  if  he  could 
sometimes  have  descended  from  his  stilts.  In  short,  a  man 
may  worship  mountains,  and  yet  have  a  quiet  joke  with 
them  when  he  is  wandering  all  day  in  their  tremendous 

20  solitudes. 

Joking,  however,  is,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  dangerous 
habit.  I  freely  avow  that,  in  my  humble  contributions 
to  Alpine  literature,  I  have  myself  made  some  very  poor  and 
very   unseasonable    witticisms.     I    confess   my    error,    and 

25  only  wish  that  I  had  no  worse  errors  to  confess.  Still  I 
think  that  the  poor  little  jokes  in  which  we  mountaineers 
sometimes  indulge  have  been  made  liable  to  rather  harsh 
constructions.  We  are  accused,  in  downright  earnest, 
not  merely  of  being  flippant,  but  of  an  arrogant  contempt 

30  for  all  persons  whose  legs  are  not  as  strong  as  our  own.  We 
are  supposed  seriously  to  wrap  ourselves  in  our  own  conceit, 
and  to  brag  intolerably  of  our  exploits.  Now  I  will  not 
say  that  no  mountaineer  ever  swaggers:  the  quality  called 
by  the  vulgar  "  bounce  "  is  unluckily  confined  to  no  pro- 

35  fession.  Certainly  I  have  seen  a  man  intolerably  vain  because 
he  could  raise  a  hundred-weight  with  his  little  finger;  and  I 
dare  say  that  the  "  champion  bill-poster,"  whose  name  is 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  133 

advertised  on  the  walls  of  this  metropolis,  thinks  excellence 
in  bill-posting  the  highest  virtue  of  a  citizen.  So  some  men 
may  be  silly  enough  to  brag  in  all  seriousness  about  moun- 
tain exploits.  However,  most  lads  of  twenty  learn  that  it 
is  silly  to  give  themselves  airs  about  mere  muscular  eminence;  5 
and  especially  is  this  true  of  Alpine  exploits — first,  because 
they  require  less  physical  prowess  than  almost  any  other 
sport,  and  secondly,  because  a  good  amateur  still  feels  him- 
self the  hopeless  inferior  of  half  the  Alpine  peasants  whom 
he  sees.  You  cannot  be  very  conceited  about  a  game  in  10 
which  the  first  clodhopper  you  meet  can  give  you  ten  minutes' 
start  in  ^n  hour.  Still  a  man  writing  in  a  humorous  vein 
naturally  adopts  a  certain  bumptious  tone,  just  as  our 
friend  "  Punch  "  ostentatiously  declares  himself  to  be 
omniscient  and  infallible.  Nobody  takes  him  at  his  word,  15 
or  supposes  that  the  editor  of  "  Punch  "  is  really  the  most 
conceited  man  in  all  England.  But  we  poor  mountaineers 
are  occasionally  fixed  with  our  own  careless  talk  by  some 
outsider  who  is  not  in  the  secret.  We  know  ourselves  to 
be  a  small  sect,  and  to  be  often  laughed  at;  we  reply  by  20 
assuming  that  we  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  that  our 
amusement  is  the  first  and  noblest  of  all  amusements.  Our 
only  retort  to  the  good-humoured  ridicule  with  which  we  are 
occasionally  treated  is  to  adopt  an  affected  strut,  and  to 
carry  it  off  as  if  we  were  the  finest  fellows  in  the  world.  We  25 
make  a  boast  of  our  shame,  and  say,  if  you  laugh  we  must 
crow.  But  we  don't  really  mean  anything:  if  we  did,  the 
only  word  which  the  English  language  would  afford  where- 
with to  describe  us  would  be  the  very  unpleasant  antithesis 
to  wise  men,  and  certainly  I  hold  that  we  have  the  average  30 
amount  of  common  sense.  When,  therefore,  I  see  us  taken 
to  task  for  swaggering,  I  think  it  a  trifle  hard  that  this  merely 
playful  affectation  of  superiority  should  be  made  a  serious 
fault.  For  the  future  I  would  promise  to  be  careful,  if  it 
were  worth  avoiding  the  misunderstanding  of  men  who  35 
won't  take  a  joke.  Aleanwhilc,  I  can  only  state  that  when 
Alpine   travellers   indulge   in   a   little   swagger   about   their 


134  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

own  performances  and  other  people's  incapacity,  they  don't 
mean  more  than  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  what  they  say, 
and  that  they  know  perfectly  well  that  when  history  comes 
to  pronounce  a  final  judgment  upon  the  men  of  the  time, 
5  it  won't  put  mountain-climbing  on  a  level  with  patriotism, 
or  even  with  excellence  in  the  fine  arts. 

The  reproach  of  real  bond  fide  arrogance  is,  so  far  as  I 
know,  very  little  true  of  Alpine  travellers.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the   necessary  fringe  hanging  on  to  every  set  of 

lo  human  beings — consisting  of  persons  whose  heads  are  weaker 
than  their  legs — ^the  mountaineer,  so  far  as  my  experience 
has  gone,  is  generally  modest  enough.  Perhaps  he  some- 
times flaunts  his  ice-axes  and  ropes  a  little  too  much  before 
the  public  eye  at  Chamonix,  as  a  yachtsman  occasionally 

15  flourishes  his  nautical  costume  at  Cowes;    but   the  fault 
may  be  pardoned  by  those  not  inexorable  to  human  weak- 
nesses.    This  opinion,  I  know,  cuts  at  the  root  of  the  most 
popular  theory  as  to  our  ruling  passion.     If  we  do  not 
climb  the  Alps  to  gain  notoriety,  for  what  purpose  can  we 

20  possibly  climb  them?  That  same  unlucky  trick  of  joking  is 
taken  to  indicate  that  we  don't  care  much  about  the 
scenery;  for  who,  with  a  really  susceptible  soul,  could  be 
facetious  under  the  cliffs  of  Jungfrau  or  the  ghastly  preci- 
pices of  the  Matterhorn?     Hence  people  who  kindly  excuse 

.25  us  from  the  blame  of  notoriety-hunting  generally  accept 
the  "greased-pole"  theory.  We  are,  it  seems,  overgrown 
schoolboys,  who,  like  other  schoolboys,  enjoy  being  in  dirt, 
and  danger,  and  mischief,  and  have  as  much  sensibility  for 
natural  beauty  as  the  mountain  mules.     And  against  this, 

30  as  a  more  serious  complaint,  I  wish  to  make  my  feeble 
protest,  in  order  that  my  lamentations  on  quitting  the 
profession  may  not  seem  unworthy  of  a  thinking  being. 

Let  me  try  to  recall  some  of  the  impressions  which  moun- 
taineering has  left  with  me,  and  see  whether  they  throw 

35  any  light  upon  the  subject.  As  1  gaze  at  the  huge  cliffs 
where  I  may  no  longer  wander,  I  find  innumcri'ble  recol- 
lections arise — some  of  them  dim,  as  though  belonging  to  a 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    135 

past  existence;  and  some  so  brilliant  that  I  can  scarcely 
realise  my  exclusion  from  the  scenes  to  which  they  belong. 
I  am  standing  at  the  foot  of  what,  to  my  mind,  is  the  most 
glorious  of  all  Alpine  wonders — the  huge  Oberland  precipice, 
on  the  slopes  of  the  FauJhorn  or  the  Wengern  Alp.  Innu-  5 
merable  tourists  have  done  all  that  tourists  can  do  to 
cocknify  (if  that  is  the  right  derivative  from  cockney)  the 
scenery;  but,  like  the  Pyramids  or  a  Gothic  cathedral, 
it  throws  off  the  taint  of  vulgarity  by  its  imperishable 
majesty.  Even  on  turf  strewn  with  sandwich-papers  and  lo 
empty  bottles,  even  in  the  presence  of  hideous  peasant- 
women  singing  "Stand-er  auf"  for  five  centimes,  we  cannot 
but  feel  the  influence  of  Alpine  beauty.  When  the  sunlight 
is  dying  off  the  snows,  or  the  full  moon  lighting  them  up 
with  ethereal  tints,  even  sandwich-papers  and  singing  women  15 
may  be  forgotten.  How  does  the  memory  of  scrambles 
along  snow  aretes,  of  plunges — luckily  not  too  deep — into 
crevasses,  of  toil  through  long  snowfields,  towards  a  refuge 
that  seemed  to  recede  as  we  advanced — where,  to  quote 
Tennyson  with  due  alteration,  to  the  traveller  toiling  in  20 
immeasurable  snow — 

Sown  in  a  wrinkle  of  the  monstrous  hill 
The  chalet  sparkles  like  a  grain  of  salt; — ■ 

how  do  such  memories  as  these  harmonise  with  the  sense  of 
superlative  sublimity?  25 

One  element  of  mountain  beauty  is,  we  shall  all  admit, 
their  vast  size  and  steepness.  That  a  mountain  is  very 
big,  and  is  faced  by  perpendicular  walls  of  rock,  is  the  first 
thing  which  strikes  ever}^body,  and  is  the  whole  essence 
and  outcome  of  a  vast  quantity  of  poetical  description.  30 
Hence  the  first  condition  towards  a  due  appreciation  of  moun- 
tain scenery  is  that  these  qualities  should  be  impressed  upon 
the  imagination.  The  mere  dry  statement  that  a  moun- 
tain is  so  many  feet  in  vertical  height  above  the  sea,  and 
contains  so  many  tons  of  granite,  is  nothing.  Mont  Blanc  35 
is  about  three  miles  hio;b.     What  of  that?     Three  miles  is 


136  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

an  hour's  walk  for  a  lady — an  eighteen-penny  cab-fare — 
the  distance  from  Hyde  Park  Corner  to  the  Bank — an 
express  train  could  do  it  in  three  minutes,  or  a  racehorse 
in  five.  It  is  a  measure  which  we  have  learnt  to  despise, 
5  looking  at  it  from  a  horizontal  point  of  view;  and  accord- 
ingly most  persons,  on  seeing  the  Alps  for  the  first  time, 
guess  them  to  be  higher,  as  measured  in  feet,  than  they 
really  are.  What,  indeed,  is  the  use  of  giving  measures  in 
feet  to  any  but  the  scientific  mind?     Who  cares  whether 

lothe  moon  is  250,000  or  2,500,000  miles  distant?  Mathe- 
maticians try  to  impress  upon  us  that  the  distance  of  the 
fixed  stars  is  only  expressible  by  a  row  of  figures  which 
stretches  across  a  page;  suppose  it  stretched  across  two  or 
across  a  dozen  pages,  should  we  be  any  the  wiser,  or  have, 

15  in  the  least  degree,  a  clearer  notion  of  the  superlative  dis- 
tances? We  civilly  say,  "Dear  me!"  when  the  astronomer 
looks  to  us  for  the  appropriate  stare,  but  we  only  say  it 
with  the  mouth;  internally  our  remark  is,  "You  might  as 
well  have  multiplied  by  a  few  more  millions  whilst  you  were 

20 about  it."  Even  astronomers,  though  not  a  specially 
imaginative  race,  feel  the  impotence  of  figures,  and  try  to 
give  us  some  measure  which  the  mind  can  grasp  a  little  more 
conveniently.  They  tell  us  about  the  cannon-ball  which 
might  have  been  flying  ever  since  the  time  of  Adam,  and 

25  not  yet  have  reached  the  heavenly  body,  or  about  the  stars 
which  may  not  yet  have  become  visible,  though  the  light 
has  been  flying  to  us  at  a  rate  inconceivable  by  the  mind 
for  an  inconceivable  number  of  years;  and  they  succeed  in 
producing  a  bewildering  and  giddy  sensation,  although  the 

30  numbers  are  too  vast  to  admit  of  any  accurate  appre- 
hension. 

We  feel  a  similar  need  in  the  case  of  mountains.  Besides 
the  bare  statement  of  figures,  it  is  necessary  to  have  some 
means  for  grasping  the  meaning  of  the  figures.     The  bare 

35  tens  and  thousands  must  be  clothed  with  some  concrete 
images.  The  statement  that  a  mountain  is  15,000  feet 
high  is,  by  itself,  little  more  impressive  than  that  it  is  3,000; 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER     137 

we  want  something  more  before  we  can  mentally  compare 
Mont  Blanc  and  Snowdon.  Indeed,  the  same  people  who 
guess  of  a  mountain's  height  at  a  number  of  feet  much 
exceeding  the  reality,  show,  when  they  are  cross-examined, 
that  they  fail  to  appreciate  in  any  tolerable  degree  the  real  s 
meaning  of  the  figures.  An  old  lady  one  day,  about  ii  a.m., 
proposed  to  walk  from  the  ^Eggischhorn  to  the  Jungfrau- 
Joch,  and  to  return  for  luncheon — the  distance  being  a  good 
twelve  hours'  journey  for  trained  mountaineers.  Every 
detail  of  which  the  huge  mass  is  composed  is  certain  to  be  lo 
underestimated.  A  gentleman  the  other  day  pointed  out 
to  me  a  grand  ice-clifif  at  the  end  of  a  hanging  glacier,  which 
must  have  been  at  least  lOO  feet  high,  and  asked  me  whether 
that  snow  was  three  feet  deep.  Nothing  is  more  common 
than  for  tourists  to  mistake  some  huge  pinnacle  of  rock,  15 
as  big  as  a  church  tower,  for  a  traveller.  The  rocks  of  the 
Grands  Mulcts,  in  one  corner  of  which  the  chalet  is  hidden, 
are  often  identified  with  a  party  ascending  Mont  Blanc; 
and  I  have  seen  boulders  as  big  as  a  house  pointed  out 
confidently  as  chamois.  People  who  make  these  blunders  20 
must  evidently  see  the  mountains  as  mere  toys,  hovrever 
many  feet  they  may  give  them  at  a  random  guess.  Huge 
overhanging  cliffs  are  to  them  steps  within  the  reach  of 
human  legs;  yawning  crevasses  are  ditches  to  be  jumped; 
and  foaming  waterfalls  are  like  streams  from  penny  squirts.  25 
Everyone  knows  the  avalanches  on  the  Jungfrau,  and  the 
curiously  disproportionate  appearance  of  the  little  puffs  of 
white  smoke,  which  are  said  to  be  the  cause  of  the  thunder; 
but  the  disproportion  ceases  to  an  eye  that  has  learnt  really 
to  measure  distance,  and  to  know  that  these  smoke-puff s  30 
represent  a  cataract  of  crashing  blocks  of  ice. 

Now  the  first  merit  of  mountaineering  is  that  it  enables 
one  to  have  what  theologians  would  call  an  experimfental 
faith  in  the  size  of  mountains — to  substitute  a  real  living 
belief  for  a  dead  intellectual  assent.  It  enables  one,  first,  35 
to  assign  something  like  its  true  magnitude  to  a  rock  or 
snow-slope;    and,  secondly,  to  measure  that  magnitude  in 


138  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

terms  of  muscular  exertion  instead  of  bare  mathematical 
units.  Suj)pose  that  we  are  standing  upon  the  Wengern 
Alp;  between  the  Monch  and  the  Eiger  there  stretches  a 
round  white  bank,  with  a  curved  outline,  which  we  may 
5  roughly  compare  to  the  back  of  one  of  Sir  E.  Landseer's 
lions.  The  ordinary  tourists — the  old  man,  the  woman,  or 
the  cripple,  who  are  supposed  to  appreciate  the  real  beauties 
of  Alpine  scenery — may  look  at  it  comfortably  from  their 
hotel.     They  may  see  its  graceful  curve,  the  long  straight 

lo  lines  that  are  ruled  in  delicate  shading  down  its  sides,  and 
the  contrast  of  the  blinding  white  snow  with  the  dark  blue 
sky  above;  but  they  will  probably  guess  it  to  be  a  mere 
bank — a  snowdrift,  perhaps,  which  has  been  piled  by  the 
last  storm.     If  you  pointed  out  to  them  one  of  the  great 

15  rocky  teeth  that  projected  from  its  summit,  and  said  that 
it  was  a  guide,  they  would  probably  remark  that  he 
looked  very  small,  and  would  fancy  that  he  could  jump 
over  the  bank  with  an  effort.  Now  a  mountaineer  knows, 
to  begin  with,  that  it  is  a  massive  rocky  rib,  covered  with 

20  snow,  lying  at  a  sharp  angle,  and  varying  perha{>s  from 
500  to  1,000  feet  in  height.  So  far  he  might  be  accom- 
l)anied  by  men  of  less  soaring  ambition;  by  an  engineer  who 
had  been  mapping  the  country,  or  an  artist  who  had  been 
carefully  observing  the  mountains  from  their  bases.     They 

25  might  learn  in  time  to  interpret  correctly  the  real  meaning 
of  sha])es  at  which  the  uninitiated  guess  at  random.  But 
the  mountaineer  can  go  a  step  further,  and  it  is  the  next 
step  which  gives  the  real  significance  to  those  delicate 
curves  and  lines.     He  can  translate  the  500  or  1,000  feet 

30  of  snow-slope  into  a  more  tangible  unit  of  measurement. 
To  him,  perhaps,  they  recall  the  memory  of  a  toilsome 
ascent,  the  sun  beating  on  his  head  for  five  or  six  hours, 
the  snow  returning  the  glare  with  still  more  parching  cfi"ect; 
a  stalwart  guide  toiling  all  the  weary  time,  cutting  steps 

35  in  hard  blue  ice,  the  fragments  hissing  and  spinning  down 
the  long  straight  grooves  in  the  frozen  snow  till  they  lost 
themselves  in  the  yawning  chasm  below;  and  step  after  step 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  139 

taken  along  the  slippery  staircase,  till  at  length  he  trium- 
phantly sprang  upon  the  summit  of  the  tremendous  wall 
that  no  human  foot  had  scaled  before.  The  little  black 
knobs  that  rise  above  the  edge  represent  for  him  huge 
impassable  rocks,  sinking  on  one  side  in  scarped  slippery  5 
surfaces  towards  the  snowfield,  and  on  the  other  stooping 
in  one  tremendous  cliff  to  a  distorted  glacier  thousands  of 
feet  below.  The  faint  blue  line  across  the  upper  neve, 
scarcely  distinguishable  to  the  eye,  represents  to  one 
observer  nothing  but  a  trifling  undulation;  a  second,  perhaps,  lo 
knows  that  it  means  a  crevasse;  the  mountaineer  remembers 
that  it  is  the  top  of  a  huge  chasm,  thirty  feet  across,  and 
perhaps  ten  times  as  deep,  with  perpendicular  sides  of 
glimmering  blue  ice,  and  fringed  by  thick  rows  of  enormous 
pendent  icicles.  The  marks  that  are  scored  in  delicate  15 
lines,  such  as  might  be  ruled  by  a  diamond  on  glass,  have 
been  cut  by  innumerable  streams  trickling  in  hot  weather 
from  the  everlasting  snow,  or  ploughed  by  succeeding 
avalanches  that  have  slipped  from  the  huge  upper  snow- 
fields  above.  In  short,  there  is  no  insignificant  line  or  mark  20 
that  has  not  its  memory  or  its  indication  of  the  strange 
phenomena  of  the  upper  world.  True,  the  same  picture  is 
painted  upon  the  retina  of  all  classes  of  observers;  and  so 
Porson  and  a  schoolboy  and  a  peasant  might  receive  the 
same  physical  impression  from  a  set  of  black  and  white  25 
marks  on  the  page  of  a  Greek  play;  but  to  one  they  would 
be  an  incoherent  conglomeration  of  unmeaning  and  capri- 
cious lines,  to  another  they  would  represent  certain  sounds 
more  or  less  corresponding  to  some  English  words;  whilst 
to  the  scholar  they  would  reveal  some  of  the  noblest  poetry  30 
in  the  world,  and  all  the  associations  of  successful  intel- 
lectual labour.  I  do  not  say  that  the  difference  is  quite 
so  great  in  the  case  of  the  mountains;  still  I  am  cevrtain 
that  no  one  can  decipher  the  natural  writing  on  the  face 
of  a  snow-slope  or  a  precipice  who  has  not  wandered  amongst  35 
their  recesses,  and  learnt  by  slow  experience  what  is  indi- 
cated by  marks  which  an  ignorant  observer  would  scarcely 


140  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

notice.  True,  even  one  who  sees  a  mountain  for  the  first 
time  may  know  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  scar  on  the  face 
of  a  cliflf  means,  for  example,  a  recent  fall  of  a  rock;  but 
between  the  bare  knowledge  and  the  acquaintance  with  all 
S  which  that  knowledge  implies — the  thunder  of  the  fall,  the 
crash  of  the  smaller  fragments,  the  bounding  energy  of  the 
descending  mass — there  is  almost  as  much  difference  as 
between  hearing  that  a  battle  has  been  fought  and  being 
present  at  it  yourself.     We  have  all  read  descriptions  of 

lo  Waterloo  till  we  are  sick  of  the  subject;  but  I  imagine  that 
our  emotions  on  seeing  the  shattered  well  of  Hougomont 
are  very  inferior  to  those  of  one  of  the  Guard  who  should 
revisit  the  place  where  he  held  out  for  a  long  day  against 
the  assaults  of  the  French  army. 

15  Now  to  an  old  mountaineer  the  Oberland  cliffs  are  full  of 
memories;  and,  more  than  this,  he  has  learnt  the  language 
spoken  by  every  crag  and  every  wave  of  glacier.  It  is  strange 
if  they  do  not  affect  him  rather  more  powerfully  than  the 
casual  visitor  who  has  never  been  initiated  by  practical 

20  experience  into  their  difficulties.  To  him,  the  huge  but- 
tress which  runs  down  from  the  Monch  is  something  more 
than  an  irregular  pyramid,  purple  with  white  patches  at 
the  bottom  and  pure  white  at  the  top.  He  fills  up  the  bare 
outline  supplied  by  the  senses  with  a  thousand  lively  images. 

25  He  sees  tier  above  tier  of  rock,  rising  in  a  gradually  ascend- 
ing scale  of  difficulty,  covered  at  first  by  long  lines  of  the 
debris  that  have  been  splintered  by  frost  from  the  higher 
wall,  and  afterwards  rising  bare  and  black  and  threatening. 
He  knows  instinctively  which  of  the  ledges  has  a  dangerous 

30  look — where  such  a  bold  mountaineer  as  John  Lauener 
might  slip  on  the  polished  surface,  or  be  in  danger  of  an 
avalanche  from  above.  He  sees  the  little  shell-like  swelling 
at  the  foot  of  the  glacier  crawling  down  the  steep  slope  above, 
and  knows  that  it  means  an  almost  inaccessible  wall  of  ice; 

35  and  the  steep  snowfields  that  rise  towards  the  summit  are 
suggestive  of  something  very  different  from  the  picture 
which  might  have  existed  in  the  mind  of  a  German  student. 


THE  REGRETS   OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  141 

who  once  asked  me  whether  it  was  possible  to  make  the 
ascent  on  a  mule. 

Hence,  if  mountains  owe  their  influence  upon  the  imagi- 
nation in  a  great  degree  to  their  size  and  steepness,  and 
apparent  inaccessibility — as  no  one  can  doubt  that  they  5 
do,  whatever  may  be  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  people 
like  to  look  at  big,  steep,  inaccessible  objects — the  advan- 
tages of  the  mountaineer  are  obvious.     He  can  measure 
those  qualities  on  a  very  dififerent  scale  from  the  ordinary 
traveler.     He  measures  the  size,  not  by  the  vague  abstract  10 
term  of  so  many  thousand  feet,  but  by  the  hours  of  labour, 
divided  into   minutes — each   separately   felt — of  strenuous 
muscular    exertion.     The    steepness    is    not    expressed    in 
degrees,  but  by  the  memory  of  the  sensation  produced  when 
a  snow-slope  seems  to  be  rising  up  and  smiting  you  in  the  15 
face;    when,  far  away  from  all  human  help,  you  are  cling- 
ing like  a  fly  to  the  slippery  side  of  a  mighty  pinnacle  in 
mid  air.     And  as  for  the  inaccessibility,  no  one  can  measure 
the  difficulty  of  cHmbing  a  hill  who  has  not  wearied  his 
muscles  and  brain  in  struggling  against  the  opposing  obsta-  20 
cles.     Alpine  travellers,  it  is  said,  have  removed  the  romance 
from  the  mountains  by  climbing  them.     What  they  have 
really  done  is  to  prove  that  there  exists  a  narrow  line  by  which 
a  way  may  be  found  to  the  top  of  any  given  mountain; 
but   the   clue   leads   through   innumerable   inaccessibilities;  25 
true,  you  can  follow  one  path,  but  to  right  and  left  are 
cliffs  which  no   human   foot  will   ever    tread,   and  whose 
terrors  can  only  be  realised  when  you  are  in  their  imme- 
diate neighbourhood.     The  cliffs  of  the  Matterhorn  do  not 
bar  the  way  to  the  top  effectually,  but  it  is  only  by  forcing  30 
a  passage   through   them   that   you   can  really   appreciate 
their  terrible  significance. 

Hence  I  say  that  the  qualities  which  strike  every  sensitive 
observer  are  impressed  upon  the  mountaineer  with  tenfold 
force    and    intensity.     If    he    is    as    accessible    to    poetical  35 
influences   as  his   neighbours — and   I   don't   know  why   he 
should  be  less  so — he  has  opened  new  avenues  of  access 


142  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

between  the  scenery  and  his  mind.  He  has  learnt  a  lan- 
guage which  is  but  partially  revealed  to  ordinary  men.  An 
artist  is  superior  to  an  unlearned  picture-seer,  not  merely 
because  he  has  greater  natural  sensibility,  but  because  he 
5  has  improved  it  by  methodical  experience;  because  his 
senses  have  been  sharpened  by  constant  practice,  till  he 
can  catch  finer  shades  of  colouring,  and  more  delicate 
inflexions  of  line;  because,  also,  the  lines  and  colours  have 
acquired  new  significance,  and  been  associated  with  a  thou- 

losand  thoughts  with  which  the  mass  of  mankind  has  never 
cared  to  connect  them.  The  mountaineer  is  improved  by  a 
similar  process.  But  I  know  some  sceptical  critics  will 
ask,  does  not  the  way  in  which  he  is  accustomed  to  regard 
mountains  rather  deaden  their  poetical  influence?     Doesn't 

15  he  come  to  look  at  them  as  mere  instruments  of  sport,  and 
overlook  their  more  spiritual  teaching?  Does  not  all  the 
excitement  of  personal  adventure  and  the  noisy  apparatus 
of  guides,  and  ropes,  and  axes,  and  tobacco,  and  the  fun 
of  climbing,   rather  dull  his  perceptions  and  incapacitate 

20  him  from  perceiving 

The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills? 

Well,  I  have  known  some  stupid  and  unpoetical  moun- 
taineers;    and,    since    I    have    been    dismounted    from    my 

25  favourite  hobby,  I  think  I  have  met  some  similar  specimens 
among  the  humbler  class  of  tourists.  There  are  persons, 
I  fancy,  who  "  do  "  the  Alps;  who  look  upon  the  Lake  of 
Lucerne  as  one  more  task  ticked  off  from  their  memorandum 
book,  and  count  up  the  list  of  summits  visible  from  the 

3oGornergrat  without  being  penetrated  with  any  keen  sense  of 
sublimity.  And  there  are  mountaineers  who  are  capable  of 
making  a  pun  on  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc — and  ca[)able  of 
nothing  more.  Still  1  venture  to  deny  that  even  punning 
is  incompatible  with  poetry,  or  that  those  who  make  the 

35  pun  can  have  no  deeper  feeling  in  their  Ijosoms  which  tliey 
are  perhaps  too  shamefaced  to  utter. 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    143 

The  fact  is  that  that  which  gives  its  inexpressible  charm 
to  mountaineering  is  the  incessant  series  of  exquisite  natural 
scenes,  which  are  for  the  most  part  enjoyed  by  the  moun- 
taineer alone.  This  is,  I  am  aware,  a  round  assertion;  but 
I  will  try  to  support  it  by  a  few  of  the  visions  which  are  5 
recalled  to  me  by  these  Oberland  cliffs,  and  which  I  have 
seen  profoundly  enjoyed  by  men  who  perhaps  never  men- 
tioned them  again,  and  probably  in  describing  their  adven- 
tures scrupulously  avoided  the  danger  of  being  sentimental. 

Thus   every   traveller   has    occasionally   done   a   sunrise,  10 
and  a  more  lamentable  proceeding  than  the  ordinary  view 
of  a  sunrise  can  hardly  be  imagined.     You  are  cold,  miserable, 
breakfastless;    have  risen  shivering  from  a  warm  bed,  and 
in  your  heart  long  only  to  creep  into  bed  again.     To  the 
mountaineer  all  this  is  changed.     He  is  beginning  a  day  full  15 
of    the    anticipation   of   a   pleasant    excitement.     He    has, 
perhaps,  been  waiting  anxiously  for  fine  weather,  to  try 
conclusions  with  some  huge  giant  not  yet  scaled.     He  moves 
out  with  something  of  the  feeling  with  which  a  soldier  goes 
to  the  assault  of  a  fortress,  but  without  the  same  probability  20 
of  coming  home  in  fragments;   the  danger  is  trifling  enough 
to  be  merely  exhilatory,  and  to  give  a  pleasant  tension  to 
the  nerves;  his  muscles  feel  firm  and  springy,  and  his  stomach 
— no  small  advantage  to  the  enjoyment  of  scenery — is  in 
excellent  order.     He  looks  at  the  si)arkling  stars  with  keen  25 
satisfaction,  prepared  to  enjoy  a  fine  sunrise  with  all  his 
faculties  at   their  best,  and  with  the  added  pleasure  of  a 
good  omen  for  his  day's  work.     Then  a  huge  dark  mass 
begins  to  mould  itself  slowly  out  of  the  darkness,  the  sky 
begins  to  form  a  background  of  deep  purple,  against  which  30 
the  outline  becomes  gradually  more  definite;    one  by  one, 
the  peaks  catch  the  exquisite  Alpine  glow,  lighting  up  in 
rapid  succession,  like  a  \ast  illumination;   and  when  at  last 
the  steady  sunlight   settles   upon   them,   and   shows  every 
rock  and  glacier,  without  even  a  delicate  film  of  mist  to 35 
obscure  them,  he  feels  his  heart  bound,  and  steps  out  gaily 
to  the  assault — just  as  the  peoj^le  on  the  Rigi  are  giving  thanks 


144  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

that  the  show  is  over  and  that  they  may  go  to  bed.  Still 
grander  is  the  sight  when  the  mountaineer  has  already  reached 
some  lofty  ridge,  and,  as  the  sun  rises,  stands  between  the  day 
and  the  night — the  valley  still  in  deep  sleep,  with  the  mists 
5  lying  between  the  folds  of  the  hills,  and  the  snow-peaks 
standing  out  clear  and  pale  white  just  before  the  sun  reaches 
them,  whilst  a  broad  band  of  orange  light  runs  all  round  the 
vast  horizon.  The  glory  of  sunsets  is  equally  increased  in 
the  thin  upper  air.     The  grandest  of  all  such  sights  that  live 

loin  my  memory  is  that  of  a  sunset  from  the  Aiguille  du 
Goute.  The  snow  at  our  feet  was  glowing  with  rich  light, 
and  the  shadows  in  our  footsteps  a  vivid  green  by  the  con- 
trast. Beneath  us  was  a  vast  horizontal  floor  of  thin  level 
mists  suspended  in  mid  air,  spread  like  a  canopy  over  the 

IS  whole  boundless  landscape,  and  tinged  with  every  hue  of 
sunset.  Through  its  rents  and  gaps  we  could  see  the  lower 
mountains,  the  distant  plains,  and  a  fragment  of  the  Lake 
of  Geneva  lying  in  a  more  sober  purple.  Above  us  rose  the 
solemn  mass  of  Mont  Blanc  in  the  richest  glow  of  an  Alpine 

20  sunset.  The  sense  of  lonely  sublimity  was  almost  oppressive, 
and  although  half  our  party  was  suffering  from  sickness, 
I  believe  even  the  guides  were  moved  to  a  sense  of  solemn 
beauty. 

These  grand  scenic  effects  are  occasionally  seen  by  ordinary 

25  travellers,  though  the  ordinary  traveller  is  for  the  most 
part  out  of  temper  at  3  a.m.  The  mountaineer  can  enjoy 
them,  both  because  his  frame  of  mind  is  properly  trained  to 
receive  the  natural  beauty,  and  because  he  alone  sees  them 
with  their  best  accessories,  amidst  the  silence  of  the  eternal 

30  snow,  and  the  vast  panoramas  visible  from  the  loftier 
summits.  And  he  has  a  similar  advantage  in  most  of  the 
great  natural  phenomena  of  the  cloud  and  the  sunshine. 
No  sight  in  the  Alps  is  more  impressive  than  the  huge  rocks 
of    a  black  precipice   suddenly  frowning  out    through  the 

35  chasms  of  a  storm-cloud.  But  grand  as  such  a  sight  may 
be  from  the  safe  verandahs  of  the  inn  at  Grindelwald,  it  is 
far  grander  in  the  silence  of  the  Central  Ali)s  amongst  the 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  145 

savage  wilderness  of  rock  and  snow.  Another  characteristic 
effect  of  the  High  Alps  often  presents  itself  when  one  has 
been  climbing  for  two  or  three  hours,  with  nothing  in  sight 
but  the  varying  wreaths  of  mist  that  chased  each  other 
monotonously  along  the  rocky  ribs  up  whose  snow-covered  5 
backbone  we  were  laboriously  fighting  our  way.  Suddenly 
there  is  a  puff  of  wind,  and  looking  round  we  find  that  we 
have  in  an  instant  pierced  the  clouds,  and  emerged,  as  it 
were,  on  the  surface  of  the  ocean  of  vapour.  Beneath  us 
stretches  for  hundreds  of  miles  the  level  fleecy  floor,  and  10 
above  us  shines  out  clear  in  the  eternal  sunshine  every 
mountain,  from  Mont  Blanc  to  Monte  Rosa  and  the  Jung- 
frau.  What,  again,  in  the  lower  regions,  can  equal  the 
mysterious  charm  of  gazing  from  the  edge  of  a  torn  rocky 
parapet  into  an  apparently  fathomless  abyss,  where  nothing  15 
but  what  an  Alpine  traveller  calls  a  "  strange  formless 
wreathing  of  vapour "  indicates  the  storm-wind  that  is 
raging  below  us?  I  might  go  on  indefinitely  recalling  the 
strangely  impressive  scenes  that  frequently  startle  the 
traveller  in  the  waste  upper  world;  but  language  is  feeble  20 
indeed  to  convey  even  a  glimmering  of  what  is  to  be  seen  to 
those  who  have  not  seen  it  for  themselves,  whilst  to  them 
it  can  be  little  more  than  a  peg  upon  which  to  hang  their 
own  recollections.  These  glories,  in  which  the  mountain 
Spirit  reveals  himself  to  his  true  worshippers,  are  only  to  be  25 
gained  by  the  appropriate  service  of  climbing — at  some  risk, 
though  a  very  trifling  risk,  if  he  is  approached  with  due 
form  and  ceremony — into  the  furthest  recesses  of  his  shrines. 
And  without  seeing  them,  I  maintain  that  no  man  has 
really  seen  the  Alps.  30 

The  difference  between  the  exoteric  and  the  esoteric 
school  of  mountaineers  may  be  indicated  by  their  dilTerent 
view  of  glaciers.  At  Grindelwald,  for  example,  it  is>  the 
fashion  to  go  and  "  see  the  glaciers  " — heaven  save  the 
mark!  Ladies  in  costumes,  heavy  German  professors,  35 
Americans  doing  the  Alps  at  a  gallop,  Cook's  tourists,  and 
other  varieties  of  a  well-known  genus,  go  off  in  shoals  and 


146  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

see — what?  A  gigantic  mass  of  ice,  strangely  torn  with  a 
few  of  the  exquisite  blue  crevasses,  but  defiled  and  prostrate 
in  dirt  and  ruins.  A  stream  foul  with  mud  oozes  out  from 
the  base;  the  whole  mass  seems  to  be  melting  fast  away; 
5  the  summer  sun  has  evidently  got  the  best  of  it  in  these 
lower  regions,  and  nothing  can  resist  him  but  the  great 
mounds  of  decaying  rock  that  strew  the  surface  in  confused 
lumps.  It  is  as  much  like  the  glacier  of  the  upper  regions 
as  the  melting  fragments  of  snow  in  a  London  street  are  like 

lo  the  surface  of  the  fresh  snow  that  has  just  fallen  in  a  country 
field.  And  by  way  of  improving  its  attractions  a  perpetual 
picnic  is  going  on,  and  the  ingenious  natives  have  hewed 
a  tunnel  into  the  ice,  for  admission  to  which  they  charge 
certain   centimes.     The  unlucky  glacier  reminds  me  at  his 

IS  latter  end  of  a  wretched  whale  stranded  on  a  beach,  dis- 
solving into  masses  of  blubber,  and  hacked  by  remorseless 
fishermen,  instead  of  plunging  at  his  ease  in  the  deep  blue 
water.  Far  above,  where  the  glacier  begins  his  course,  he 
is   seen   only   by   the   true   mountaineer.     There   are   vast 

20  amphitheatres  of  pure  snow,  of  which  the  glacier  known 
to  tourists  is  merely  the  insignificant  drainage,  but  whose 
very  existence  they  do  not  generally  suspect.  They  are 
utterly  ignorant  that  from  the  top  of  the  icefall  which  they 
visit  you  may  walk  for  hours  on  the  eternal  ice.     After  a 

25  long  climb  you  come  to  the  region  where  the  glacier  is  truly 
at  its  noblest;  where  the  surface  is  a  spotless  white;  where 
the  crevasses  are  enormous  rents  sinking  to  profound  depths, 
with  walls  of  the  purest  blue;  where  the  glacier  is  torn  and 
shattered  by  the  energetic  forces  which  mould  it,  but  has  an 

30  expression  of  superabundant  power,  like  a  full  stream  fretting 
against  its  banks  and  plunging  through  the  vast  gorges 
that  it  has  hewn  for  itself  in  the  course  of  centuries.  The 
bases  of  the  mountains  are  immersed  in  a  deluge  of  cockney- 
ism— fortunately   a   shallow   deluge — whilst   their   summits 

35  rise  high  into  the  bracing  air,  where  everything  is  pure  and 
poetical. 

The  difference  which  I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  indicate 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    147 

is  more  or  less  traceable  in  a  wider  sense.  The  mountains 
are  exquisitely  beautiful,  indeed,  from  whatever  points  of 
view  we  contemplate  them;  and  the  mountaineer  would 
lose  much  if  he  never  saw  the  beauties  of  the  lower  valleys, 
of  pasturages  deep  in  flowers,  and  dark  pine-forests  with  the  5 
summits  shining  from  far  off  between  the  stems.  Only,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  he  has  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  thoroughly 
enjoying  one — and  that  the  most  characteristic,  though  by 
no  means  only,  element  of  the  scenery.  There  may  be  a 
very  good  dinner  spread  before  twenty  people;  but  if  nine- 10 
teen  of  them  were  teetotalers,  and  the  twentieth  drank  his 
wine  like  a  man,  he  would  be  the  only  one  to  do  it  full  justice; 
the  others  might  praise  the  meat  or  the  fruits,  but  he  would 
alone  enjoy  the  champagne;  and  in  the  great  feast  which 
Nature  spreads  before  us  (a  stock  metaphor,  which  emboldens  15 
me  to  make  the  comparison),  the  high  mountain  scenery 
acts  the  part  of  the  champagne.  Unluckily,  too,  the  tee- 
totalers are  very  apt,  in  this  case  also,  to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  their  more  adventurous  neighbours.  Especially  are 
they  pleased  to  carp  at  the  views  from  high  summits.  1 20 
have  been  constantly  asked,  with  a  covert  sneer,  "  Did 
it  repay  you?" — a  question  which  involves  the  assumption 
that  one  wants  to  be  repaid,  as  though  the  labour  were  not 
itself  part  of  the  pleasure,  and  which  implies  a  doubt  that 
the  view  is  really  enjoyable.  People  are  always  demonstrat-  25 
ing  that  the  lower  views  are  the  most  beautiful;  and  at  the 
same  time  complaining  that  mountaineers  frequently  turn 
back  without  looking  at  the  view  from  the  top,  as  though 
that  would  necessarily  imply  that  they  cared  nothing  for 
scenery.  In  opposition  to  which  I  must  first  remark  that,  30 
as  a  rule,  every  step  of  an  ascent  has  a  beauty  of  its  own, 
which  one  is  quietly  absorbing  even  when  one  is  not  directly 
making  it  a  subject  of  contemplation,  and  that  the  View 
from  the  top  is  generally  the  crowning  glory  of  the  whole. 

It  will  be  enough  if  I  conclude  with  an  attempt  to  illus-35 
trate  this  last  assertion:    and  I  will  do  it  by  still  referring 
to  the  Oberland.     Every  visitor  with  a  soul  for  the  beautiful 


148  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

admires  the  noble  form  of  the  Wetterhorn — the  lofty  snow- 
crowned  pyramid  rising  in  such  light  and  yet  massive  lines 
from  its  huge  basement  of  perpendicular  cHffs.  The  Wetter- 
horn  has,  however,  a  further  merit.  To  my  mind — and  I 
S  believe  most  connoisseurs  of  mountain  tops  agree  with  me — 
it  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  summits  in  the  Alps.  It 
is  not  a  sharp  pinnacle  like  the  Weisshorn,  or  a  cupola  like 
Mont  Blanc,  or  a  grand  rocky  tooth  like  the  Monte  Rosa, 
but  a  long  and  nearly  horizontal  knife-edge,  which,  as  seen 

lofrom  either  end,  has  of  course  the  appearance  of  a  sharp- 
pointed  cone.  It  is  when  balanced  upon  this  ridge- 
sitting  astride  of  the  knife-edge  on  which  one  can  hardly 
stand  without  giddiness — that  one  fully  appreciates  an 
Alpine   precipice.      Mr.     Justice  Wills   has   admirably  dc- 

15  scribed  the  first  ascent,  and  the  impression  it  made  upon  him, 
in  a  paper  which  has  become  classical  for  succeeding  adven- 
turers. Behind  you  the  snow-slope  sinks  with  perilous 
steepness  towards  the  wilderness  of  glacier  and  rock  through 
which  the  ascent  has  lain.     But  in  front  the  ice  sinks  with 

20  even  greater  steepness  for  a  few  feet  or  yards.  Then  it 
curves  over  and  disappears,  and  the  next  thing  that  the  eye 
catches  is  the  meadowland  of  Grindelwald,  some  9,000  feet 
below.  I  have  looked  down  many  precipices,  where  the 
eye  can  trace  the  course  of  every  pebble  that  bounds  down 

25  the  awful  slopes,  and  where  I  have  shuddered  as  some  dis- 
lodged fragment  of  rock  showed  the  course  which,  in  case 
of  accident,  fragments  of  my  own  body  would  follow.  A 
precipice  is  always,  for  obvious  reasons,  far  more  terrible 
from  above  than  from  below.     The  creeping,  tingling  sensa- 

3otion  which  passes  through  one's  limbs — even  when  one 
knows  oneself  to  be  in  perfect  safety — testifies  to  the  thrilling 
influence  of  the  sight.  But  I  have  never  so  realised  the 
terrors  of  a  terrific  cliff  as  when  I  could  not  see  it.  The 
awful   gulf   which   intervened   between   me   and  the   green 

35  meadows  struck  the  imagination  by  its  invisibility.  It 
was  like  the  vi(-'w  which  may  be  seen  from  the  ridge  of  a 
cathedral  roof,  where  the  eaves  have  for  their  immediate 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    149 

background  the  pavement  of  the  streets  below;  only  this 
cathedral  was  9,000  feet  high.  Now,  any  one  standing  at  the 
foot  of  the  Wetterhorn  may  admire  their  stupendous  mas- 
siveness  and  steepness;  but,  to  feel  their  influence  enter 
in  the  very  marrow  of  one's  bones,  it  is  necessary  to  stand  5 
at  the  summit,  and  to  fancy  the  one  little  slide  down  the 
short  ice-slope,  to  be  followed  apparently  by  a  bound  into 
clear  air  and  a  fall  down  to  the  houses,  from  heights  where 
only  the  eagle  ventures  to  soar. 

This  is  one  of  the  Alpine  beauties,  which,  of  course,  is  10 
beyond  the  power  of  art  to  imitate,  and  which  people  are 
therefore  apt  \o  ignore.     But  it  is  not  the  only  one  to  be 
seen  on  the  high  summits.     It  is  often  said  that  these  views 
are  not  "  beautiful  " — apparently  because    they  won't  go 
into  a  picture,  or,  to  put  it  more  fairly,  because  no  picture  15 
can   in    the   faintest   degree    imitate    them.     But   without 
quarrelling  about  words,  I  think  that,  even  if  "  beautiful  " 
be  not  the  most  correct  epithet,  they  have  a  marvellously 
stimulating    effect    upon    the    imagination.      Let    us   look 
round    from    this    wonderful    pinnacle    in    mid    air,    and  20 
note    one    or    two  of   the   most   striking  elements  of  the 
scenery. 

You  are,  in  the  first  place,  perched  on  a  cliff,  whose  presence 
is  the  more  felt  because  it  is  unseen.     Then  you  are  in  a 
region  over  which  eternal  silence  is  brooding.     Not  a  sound  25 
ever  comes  there,  except  the  occasional  fall  of  a  splintered 
fragment  of  rock,  or  a  layer  of  snow;    no  stream  is  heard 
trickling,  and  the  sounds  of  animal  life  are  left  thousands  of 
feet  below.     The  most  that  you  can  hear  is  some  mysterious 
noise  made  by  the  wind  eddying  round  the  gigantic  rocks; 30 
sometimes  a  strange  flapping   sound,   as  if  an   unearthly 
flag  were  shaking  its  invisible  folds  in  the  air.     The  enormous 
tract  of  country  over  which  }'our  view  extends — most  ^of  it 
dim  and  almost  dissolved  into  air  by  distance — intensifies 
the  strange  influence  of  the  silence.     You  feel  the  force  of  the  35 
line  I  have  quoted  from  Wordsworth — 

The  sleep  Lhul  is  among  the  lonely  hills. 


150  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

None  of  the  travellers  whom  you  can  see  crawling  at  your 
feet  has  the  least  conception  of  what  is  meant  by  the  silent 
solitudes  of  the  High  Alps.  To  you,  it  is  like  a  return  to 
the  stir  of  active  life,  when,  after  hours  of  lonely  wandering, 
5  you  return  to  hear  the  tinkhng  of  the  cow-bells  below;  to  them 
the  same  sound  is  the  ultimate  limit  of  the  habitable  world. 

Whilst  your  mind  is  properly  toned  by  these  influences, 
you  become  conscious  of  another  fact,  to  which  the  com- 
mon   variety    of    tourists    is    necessarily    insensible.     You 

lo  begin  to  find  out  for  the  first  time  what  the  mountains  really 
are.  On  one  side,  you  look  back  upon  the  huge  reservoirs 
from  which  the  Oberland  glaciers  descend..  You  see  the 
vast  stores  from  which  the  great  rivers  of  Europe  are  replen- 
ished, the  monstrous  crawHng  masses  that  are  carving  the 

IS  mountains  into  shape,  and  the  gigantic  bulwarks  that 
separate  two  great  quarters  of  the  world.  From  below 
these  wild  regions  are  half  invisible;  they  are  masked  by 
the  outer  line  of  mountains;  and  it  is  not  till  you  are  able 
to  command  them  from  some  lofty  point  that  you  can  appre- 

sociate  the  grandeur  of  the  huge  barriers,  and  the  snow  that 
is  piled  within  their  folds.  There  is  another  half  of  the  view 
equally  striking.  Looking  towards  the  north,  the  whole  of 
Switzerland  is  couched  at  your  feet;  the  Jura  and  the 
Black  Forest  lie  on  the  far  horizon.     And   then  you  know 

25  what  is  the  nature  of  a  really  mountainous  country.  From 
below  everything  is  seen  in  a  kind  of  distorted  perspective. 
The  people  of  the  valley  naturally  think  that  the  valley  is 
everything — that  the  country  resembles  old-fashioned  maps, 
where  a  few  sporadic  lumps  are  distributed  amongst  towns 

30  and  plains.  The  true  proportions  reveal  themselves  as  you 
ascend.  The  valleys,  you  can  now  see,  are  nothing  but 
narrow  trenches  scooped  out  amidst  a  tossing  waste  of 
mountain,  just  to  carry  ofif  the  drainage.  The  great  ridges 
run  hither  and  thither,  having  it  all  their  own  way,  wild 

35  and  untamable  regions  of  rock  or  open  grass  or  forest, 
at  whose  feet  the  valleys  exist  on  sufferance.  Creeping  about 
amongst  the  roots  of  the  hills,  you  half  miss  the  hills  them- 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  MOUNTAINEER    151 

selves;  you  quite  fail  to  understand  the  massiveness  of  the 
mountain  chains,  and,  therefore,  the  wonderful  energy  of 
the  forces  that  have  heaved  the  surface  of  the  world  into 
these  distorted  shapes.  And  it  is  to  a  half-conscious  sense 
of  the  powers  that  must  have  been  at  work  that  a  great  part  5 
of  the  influence  of  mountain  scenery  is  due.  Geologists 
tell  us  that  a  theory  of  catastrophes  is  unphilosophical ; 
but,  whatever  may  be  the  scientific  truth,  our  minds  are 
impressed  as  though  we  were  witnessing  the  results  of  some 
incredible  convulsion.  At  Stonehenge  we  ask  what  human  lo 
beings  could  have  erected  these  strange  grey  monuments, 
and  in  the  mountains  we  instinctively  ask  what  force  can 
have  carved  out  the  Matterhorn,  and  placed  the  Wetter- 
horn  on  its  gigantic  pedestal.  Now,  it  is  not  till  we  reach 
some  commanding  point  that  we  realise  the  amazing  extent  15 
of  country  over  which  the  solid  ground  has  been  shaking 
and  heaving  itself  in  irresistible  tumult. 

Something,  it  is  true,  of  this  last  effect  may  be  seen  from 
such  mountains  as  the  Rigi  or  the  Faulhorn.     There,  too, 
one  seems  to  be  at  the  centre  of  a  vast  sphere,  the  earth  20 
bending  up  in  a  cup-like  form  to  meet  the  sky,  and  the 
blue  vault  above  stretching  in  an  arch  majestical  by  its 
enormous  extent.     There  you  seem  to  see  a  sensible  frac- 
tion of  the  world  at  your  feet.     But  the  effect  is  far  less 
striking  when  other  mountains  obviously  look  down  upon  25 
you;   when,  as  it  were,  you  are  looking  at  the  waves  of  the 
great  ocean  of  hills  merely  from  the  crest  of  one  of  the 
waves  themselves,  and  not  from  some  lighthouse  that  rises 
far  over  their  heads;    for  the  Wetterhorn,  like  the  Eiger, 
Monch,  and  Jungfrau,  owes  one  great  beauty  to  the  fact  30 
that  it  is  on  the   edge  of  the  lower  country,  and  stands 
between  the  real  giants  and  the  crowd  of  inferior,  though 
still  enormous,  masses  in  attendance  upon  them.     And,  in 
the  next  place,  your  mind  is  far  better  adapted  to  receive 
impressions  of  sublimity  when  you  are  alone,   in  a  silent  35 
region,  with  a  black  sky  alcove  and  giant  cliffs  all  round; 
with  a  sense  still  in  your  mind,  if  not  of  actual  danger,  still 


152  LESLIE  STEPHEN 

of  danger  that  would  become  real  with  the  slightest  relax- 
ation of  caution,  and  with  the  world  divided  from  you  by 
hours  of  snow  and  rock. 

I  will  go  no  further,  not  because  I  have  no  more  to  say, 
S  but  because  descriptions  of  scenery  soon  become  weari- 
some, and  because  I  have,  I  hope,  said  enough  to  show  that 
the  mountaineer  may  boast  of  some  intellectual  pleasures; 
that  he  is  not  a  mere  scrambler,  but  that  he  looks  for  poetical 
impressions,  as  well  as  for  such  small  glory  as  his  achieve- 

lo  ments  may  gain  in  a  very  small  circle.  Something  of  what 
he  gains  fortunately  sticks  by  him:  he  does  not  quite  forget 
the  mountain  language;  his  eye  still  recognises  the  space 
and  the  height  and  the  glory  of  the  lofty  mountains.  And 
yet  there  is  some  pain  in  wandering  ghostlike  among  the 

15  scenes  of  his  earlier  pleasures.  For  my  part,  I  try  in  vain 
to  hug  myself  in  a  sense  of  comfort.  I  turn  over  in  bed 
when  I  hear  the  stamping  of  heavily  nailed  shoes  along  the 
passage  of  an  inn  about  2  a.m.  I  feel  the  skin  of  my  nose 
complacently  when  I  see  others  returning  with  a  glistening 

20  tight  aspect  about  that  unluckily  prominent  feature,  and 
know  that  in  a  day  or  two  it  will  be  raw  and  blistered  and 
burning.  I  think,  in  a  comfortable  inn  at  night,  of  the 
miseries  of  those  who  are  trying  to  sleep  in  damp  hay,  or 
on  hard  boards  of  chalets,  at  once  cold  and  stufify  and  haunted 

25  by  innumerable  fleas.  I  congratulate  myself  on  having  a 
whole  skin  and  unfractured  bones,  and  on  the  small  danger 
of  ever  breaking  them  over  an  Alpine  precipice.  But  yet 
I  secretly  know  that  these  consolations  are  feeble.  It  is 
little  use  to  avoid  early  rising  and  discomfort,  and  even 

30  fleas,  if  one  also  loses  the  pleasures  to  which  they  were  the 
sauce — rather  too  piquante  a  sauce  occasionally,  it  must  be 
admitted.  The  philosophy  is  all  very  well  which  recom- 
mends moderate  enjoyment,  regular  exercise,  and  a  careful 
avoidance  of  risk  and  over-excitement.     That  is,  it  is  all 

35  very  well  so  long  as  risk  and  excitement  and  immoderate 
enjoyment  are  out  of  your  power;  but  it  does  not  stand 
the  test  of  looking  on  and  seeing  them  just  beyond  your 


THE  REGRETS   OF  A  MOUNTAINEER  153 

reach.  In  time,  no  doubt,  a  man  may  grow  calm;  he  may 
learn  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  and  the  exquisite  beauties  of 
the  lower  regions — though  they,  too,  are  most  fully  enjoyed 
when  they  have  a  contrast  with  beauties  of  a  difTcrent,  and 
pleasures  of  a  keener  excitement.  When  first  debarred,  at  S 
any  rate,  one  feels  like  a  balloon  full  of  gas,  and  fixed  by 
immovable  ropes  to  the  prosaic  ground.  It  is  pleasant  to 
lie  on  one's  back  in  a  bed  of  rhododendrons,  and  look  up 
to  a  mountain  top  peering  at  one  from  above  a  bank  of  cloud; 
but  it  is  pleasantest  when  one  has  qualified  oneself  for  repose  lo 
by  climbing  the  peak  the  day  before  and  becoming  familiar 
with  its  terrors  and  its  beauties.  In  time,  doubtless,  one 
may  get  reconciled  to  anything;  one  may  settle  down  to 
be  a  caterpillar,  even  after  one  has  known  the  pleasures  of 
being  a  butterfly;  one  may  become  philosophical,  and  have  15 
one's  clothes  let  out;  and  even  in  time,  perhaps — though  it 
is  almost  too  terrible  to  contemplate — be  content  with  a 
mule  or  a  carriage,  or  that  lowest  depth  to  which  human 
beings  can  sink,  and  for  which  the  English  language  happily 
affords  no  name,  a  chaise  a  portents:  and  even  in  such  20 
degradation  the  memory  of  better  times  may  be  pleasant; 
for  I  doubt  much  whether  it  is  truth  the  poet  sings — 

That  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remcmljcring  happier  things. 

Certainly,  to  a  philosophical  mind,  the  sentiment  is  doubt- 
ful.    For  my  part,  the  fate  which  has  cut  me  off,  if  I  may  25 
use  the  expression,  in  the  flower  of  my  youth,  and  doomed 
me  to  be  a  non-climbing  animal  in  future,  is  one  which  ought  to 
exclude  grumbling.     I  cannot  indicate  it  more  plainly,  for  I 
might  so  make  even  the  grumbling  in  which  I  have  already 
indulged  look  like  a  sin.     I  can  only  say  that  there  are  some 30 
very  delightful  things  in  which  it  is  possible  to  discover  an 
infinitesimal  drop  of  bitterness,  and  that  the  mountaineer  who 
undertakes  to  cut  himself  ofT  from  his  favourite  pastime,  even 
for  reasons  which  he  will  admit  in  his  wildest  moods  to  be  more 
than  amply  sui!icicnt,  must  expect  at  times  to  feel  certain 35 
pangs  of  regret,  however  quickly  they  may  be  smothered. 


BEHAVIOR  1 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

The  soul  which  animates  nature  is  not  less  significantly 
published  in  the  figure,  movement,  and  gesture  of  animated 
bodies,  than  in  its  last  vehicle  of  articulate  speech.  This 
silent  and  subtle  language  is  Manners;  not  what,  but  how. 
5  Life  expresses.  A  statue  has  no  tongue,  and  needs  none. 
Good  tableaux  do  not  need  declamation.  Nature  tells  every 
secret  once.  Yes,  but  in  man  she  tells  it  all  the  time,  by 
form,  attitude,  gesture,  mien,  face,  and  parts  of  the  face,  and 
by  the  whole  action  of  the  machine.     The  visible  carriage  or 

lo  action  of  the  individual,  as  resulting  from  his  organization 
and  his  will  combined,  we  call  manners.  What  are  they  but 
thought  entering  the  hands  and  feet,  controlling  the  move- 
ments of  the  body,  the  speech  and  behavior? 

There  is  always  a  best  way  of  doing  everything,  if  it  be  to 

15  boil  an  egg.  Manners  are  the  happy  ways  of  doing  things; 
each  once  a  stroke  of  genius  or  of  love, — now  repeated  and 
hardened  into  usage.  They  form  at  last  a  rich  varnish,  with 
which  the  routine  of  life  is  washed,  and  its  details  adorned. 
If  they  are  superficial,  so  are  the  dew-drops  which  give  such  a 

20  depth  to  the  morning  meadows.  Manners  are  very  com- 
municable: men  catch  them  from  each  other.  Consuelo,  in 
the  romance,  boasts  of  the  lessons  she  had  given  the  nobles  in 
manners,  on  the  stage:  and,  in  real  life.  Talma  taught  Napo- 
leon the  arts  of  behavior.     Genius  invents  fine  manners, 

25  which  the  baron  and  the  baroness  copy  very  fast,  and,  by 
the  advantage  of  a  palace,  better  the  instruction.  They 
stereotype  the  lesson  they  have  learned  into  a  mode. 

^  Chapter  V  of  "  The  Conduct  of  Life,"  i860. 

154 


BEHAVIOR  155 

The  power  of  manners  is  incessant, — an  element  as  uncon- 
cealable  as  fire.  The  nobility  cannot  in  any  country  be  dis- 
guised, and  no  more  in  a  republic  or  a  democracy  than  in  a 
kingdom.  No  man  can  resist  their  influence.  There  are 
certain  manners  which  are  learned  in  good  society,  of  that  s 
force,  that,  if  a  person  have  them,  he  or  she  must  be  con- 
sidered, and  is  everywhere  welcome,  though  without  beauty, 
or  wealth,  or  genius.  Give  a  boy  address  and  accomplish- 
ments, and  you  give  him  the  mastery  of  palaces  and  fortunes 
where  he  goes.  He  has  not  the  trouble  of  earning  or  owning  lo 
them;  they  solicit  him  to  enter  and  possess.  We  send  girls 
of  a  timid,  retreating  disposition  to  the  boarding-school,  to 
the  riding-school,  to  the  ballroom,  or  wheresoever  they  can 
come  into  acquaintance  and  nearness  of  leading  persons  of 
their  own  sex;  where  they  might  learn  address,  and  see  it  15 
near  at  hand.  The  power  of  a  woman  of  fashion  to  lead,  and 
also  to  daunt  and  repel,  derives  from  their  belief  that  she 
knows  resources  and  behaviors  not  known  to  them;  but 
when  these  have  mastered  her  secret,  they  learn  to  confront 
her,  and  recover  their  self-possession.  20 

Every  day  bears  witness  to  their  gentle  rule.  People  who 
would  obtrude,  now  do  not  obtrude.  The  mediocre  circle 
learns  to  demand  that  which  belongs  to  a  high  state  of  nature 
or  of  culture.  Your  manners  are  always  under  examination, 
and  by  committees  little  suspected, — a  police  in  citizen's  25 
clothes, — but  are  awarding  or  denying  you  very  high  prizes 
when  you  least  think  of  it. 

We  talk  much  of  utilities, — but  'tis  our  manners  that  asso- 
ciate us.  In  hours  of  business,  we  go  to  him  who  knows,  or 
has,  or  does  this  or  that  which  we  want,  and  we  do  not  let  our  30 
taste  or  feeling  stand  in  the  way.  But  this  activity  over,  we 
return  to  the  indolent  state,  and  wish  for  those  we  can  be  at 
ease  with;  those  who  will  go  where  we  go,  whose  manners  do 
not  offend  us,  whose  social  tone  chimes  with  ours.  When  we 
reflect  on  their  persuasive  and  cheering  force;  how  they 35 
recommend,  prepare,  and  draw  people  together;  how,  in  all 
clubs,  manners  make  the  members;  how  manners  make  the 


156  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

fortune  of  the  ambitious  youth;  that,  for  the  most  part,  his 
manners  marry  him,  and,  for  the  most  part,  he  marries 
manners;  when  we  think  what  keys  they  are,  and  to  what 
secrets;  what  high  lessons  and  inspiring  tokens  of  character 
S  they  convey;  and  what  divination  is  required  in  us,  for  the 
reading  of  this  fine  telegraph;  we  see  what  range  the  subject 
has,  and  what  relations  to  convenience,  power,  and  beauty. 
Their  first  service  is  very  low, — when  they  are  the  minor 
morals;    but  'tis  the  beginning  of  civility, — to  make  us,  I 

lo  mean,  endurable  to  each  other.  We  prize  them  for  their 
rough-plastic,  abstergent  force;  to  get  people  out  of  the 
quadruped  state;  to  get  them  washed,  clothed,  and  set  up 
on  end;  to  slough  their  animal  husks  and  habits;  compel 
them  to  be  clean;   overawe  their  spite  and  meanness,  teach 

IS  them  to  stifle  the  base,  and  choose  the  generous  expression, 
and  make  them  know  how  much  happier  the  generous 
behaviors  are. 

Bad  behavior  the  laws  cannot  reach.     Society  is  invested 
with  rude,  cynical,  restless,  and  frivolous  persons  who  prey 

20  upon  the  rest,  and  whom  a  public  opinion  concentrated  into 
good  manners,  forms  accepted  by  the  sense  of  all,  can  reach; 
— the  contradictors  and  railcrs  at  public  and  private  tables, 
who  are  like  terriers,  who  conceive  it  the  duty  of  a  dog  of 
honor  to  growl  at  any  passer-by,  and  do  the  honors  of  the 

25  house  by  barking  him  out  of  sight; — I  have  seen  men  who 
neigh  like  a  horse  when  you  contradict  them,  or  say  some- 
thing which  they  do  not  understand; — then  the  overbold, 
who  make  their  own  invitation  to  your  hearth;  the  persever- 
ing talker,  who  gives  you  his  society  in  large,  saturating  doses; 

30  the  pitiers  of  themselves, — a  perilous  class;  the  frivolous 
Asmodeus,  who  relies  on  you  to  find  him  in  ropes  of  sand  to 
twist;  the  monotones;  in  short,  every  stripe  of  absurdity; — 
these  are  social  inflictions  which  the  magistrate  cannot  cure 
or  defend  you  from,  and  which  must  be  intrusted  to  the 

35  restraining  force  of  custom,  and  proverbs,  and  familiar  rules 

of  behavior  impressed  on  young  people  in  their  school-days. 

In  the  hotels  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  they  print,  or 


BEHAVIOR  157 

used  to  print,  among  the  rules  of  the  house,  that  "  No  gentle- 
man can  be  permitted  to  come  to  the  public  table  without  his 
coat;  "  and  in  the  same  country,  in  the  pews  of  the  churches, 
little  placards  plead  with  the  worshipper  against  the  fury  of 
expectoration.  Charles  Dickens  self-sacrificingly  undertook  5 
the  reformation  of  our  American  manners  in  unspeakable 
particulars.  I  think  the  lesson  was  not  quite  lost;  that  it 
held  bad  manners  up,  so  that  the  churls  could  see  the  de- 
formity. Unhappily,  the  book  had  its  own  deformities.  It 
ought  not  to  need  to  print  in  a  reading  room  a  caution  to  10 
strangers  not  to  speak  loud;  nor  to  persons  who  look  over 
fine  engravings,  that  they  should  be  handled  like  cobwebs 
and  butterflies'  wings;  nor  to  persons  who  look  at  marble 
statues,  that  they  shall  not  smite  them  with  canes.  But, 
even  in  the  perfect  civilization  of  this  city,  such  cautions  are  15 
not  quite  needless  in  the  Athenaeum  and  City  Library. 

Manners  are  factitious,  and  grow  out  of  circumstances  as 
well  as  out  of  character.     If  you  look  at  the  pictures  of  patri- 
cians and  of  peasants,  of  different  periods  and  countries,  you 
will  see  how  well  they  match  the  same  classes  in  our  towns.  20 
The  modern  aristocrat  not  only  is  well  drawn  in  Titian's 
Venetian  doges,  and  in  Roman  coins  and  statues,  but  also  in 
the  pictures  which  Commodore  Perry  brought  home  of  digni- 
taries in  Japan.     Broad  lands  and  great  interests  not  only 
arrive  to  such  heads  as  can  manage  them,  but  form  manners  25 
of  power.     A  keen  eye,  too,  will  see  nice  gradations  of  rank, 
or  see  in  the  manners  the  degree  of  homage  the  party  is  wont 
to  receive.     A  prince  who  is  accustomed  every  day  to  be 
courted  and  deferred  to  by  the  highest  grandees,  acquires  a 
corresponding  expectation,  and  a  becoming  mode  of  receiv-30 
ing  and  replying  to  this  homage. 

There  are  always  exceptional  people  and  modes.  English 
grandees  affect  to  be  farmers.  Ciaverhouse  is  a  fop, 'and, 
under  the  finish  of  dress,  and  le\ity  of  behavior,  hides  the 
terror  of  his  war.  But  Nature  and  Destiny  are  honest,  and 35 
never  fail  to  leave  their  mark,  to  hang  out  a  sign  for  each  and 
for  every  ciualitx'.     It  is  much  to  concjuer  one's  face,  and 


158  RALril  WALDO  EMERSON 

perhaps  the  ambitious  youth  thinks  he  has  got  the  whole 
secret  when  he  has  learned  that  disengaged  manners  are 
commanding.  Don't  be  deceived  by  a  facile  exterior. 
Tender  men  sometimes  have  strong  wills.  We  had,  in 
5  Massachusetts,  an  old  statesman,  who  had  sat  all  his  life  in 
courts  and  in  chairs  of  state,  without  overcoming  an  extreme 
irritability  of  face,  voice,  and  bearing:  when  he  spoke,  his 
voice  would  not  serve  him;  it  cracked,  it  broke,  it  wheezed, 
it  piped; — little  cared  he;   he  knew  that  it  had  got  to  pipe, 

loor  wheeze,  or  screech  his  argument  and  his  indignation. 
When  he  sat  down,  after  speaking,  he  seemed  in  a  sort  of 
fit,  and  held  on  to  his  chair  with  both  hands:  but  under- 
neath all  this  irritability  w^as  a  puissant  will,  firm  and  advanc- 
ing, and  a  memory  in  which  lay  in  order  and  method,  like 

15  geologic  strata,  every  fact  of  his  history,  and  under  the 
control  of  his  will. 

Manners  are  partly  factitious,  but,  mainly,  there  must  be 
capacity  for  culture  in  the  blood.  Else  all  culture  is  vain. 
The  obstinate  prejudice  in  favor  of  blood,  which  lies  at  the 

20  base  of  the  feudal  and  monarchical  fabrics  of  the  old  world, 
has  some  reason  in  common  experience.  Every  man, — 
mathematician,  artist,  soldier,  or  merchant, — looks  with 
confidence  for  some  traits  and  talents  in  his  own  child,  which 
he  would  not  dare  to  presume  in  the  child  of  a  stranger.     The 

25  Orientalists  are  very  orthodox  on  this  point.  "  Take  a 
thorn-bush,"  said  the  emir  Abdcl-Kader,  "  and  sprinkle  it 
for  a  whole  year  with  w^ater,  it  will  yield  nothing  but  thorns. 
Take  a  date-tree,  leave  it  without  culture,  and  it  will  always 
produce   dates.     Nobility   is    the   date-tree,  and   the   Arab 

30  populace  is  a  bush  of  thorns." 

A  main  fact  in  the  history  of  manners  is  the  wonderful 
expressiveness  of  the  human  body.  If  it  were  made  of  glass, 
or  of  air,  and  the  thoughts  were  written  on  steel  tablets 
within,  it  could  not  publish  more  truly  its  meaning  than  now. 

35  Wise  men  read  very  sharply  all  your  private  history  in  your 
look  and  gait  and  behavior.  The  whole  economy  of  nature 
is  bent  on  expression.     The  tell-tale  body  is  all  tongues. 


BEHAVIOR  159 

Men  are  like  Geneva  watches  with  crystal  faces  which  expose 
the  whole  movement.  They  carry  the  liquor  of  Hfe  flowing 
up  and  down  in  these  beautiful  bottles,  and  announcing  to 
the  curious  how  it  is  with  them.  The  face  and  eyes  reveal 
what  the  spirit  is  doing,  how  old  it  is,  what  aims  it  has.  The  5 
eyes  indicate  the  antiquity  of  the  soul,  or  through  how  many 
forms  it  has  already  ascended.  It  almost  violates  the  pro- 
prieties, if  we  say  above  the  breath  here  what  the  confessing 
eyes  do  not  hesitate  to  utter  to  every  street  passenger. 

Man  cannot  fix  his  eye  on  the  sun,  and  so  far  seems  imper- 10 
feet.      In  Siberia,  a  late   traveller  found  men  who  could 
see  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  with  their  unarmed  eye.     In 
some   respects   the   animals    excel   us.     The   birds   have   a 
longer  sight,  beside  the  advantage  by  their  wings  of  a  higher 
observatory.     A  cow  can  bid  her  calf,  by  secret  signal,  prob- 15 
ably  of  the  eye,  to  run  away,  or  to  lie  down  and  hide  itself. 
The  jockeys  say  of  certain  horses,  that  "  they  look  over  the 
whole  ground."     The  outdoor  life,  and  hunting,  and  labor, 
give  equal  \'igor  to  the  human  eye.     A  farmer  looks  out  at 
you  as  strong  as  the  horse;    his  eye-beam  is  like  the  stroke 20 
of  a  staff.     An  eye  can  threaten  like  a  loaded  and  levelled 
gun,  or  can  insult  like  hissing  or  kicking;    or,  in  its  altered 
mood,  ])y  beams  of  kindness,  it  can  make  the  heart  dance 
with  joy. 

The  eye  obeys  exactly  the  action  of  the  mind.  When  a  25 
thought  strikes  us,  the  eyes  fix,  and  remain  gazing  at  a 
distance;  in  enumerating  the  names  of  persons  or  of  coun- 
tries, as  France,  Germany,  Spain,  Turkey,  the  eyes  wink 
at  each  new  name.  There  is  no  nicety  of  learning  sought  by 
the  mind,  which  the  eyes  do  not  vie  in  acquiring.  "An 30 
artist,"  said  Michael  Angelo,  "must  have  his  measuring  tools 
not  in  the  hand,  but  in  the  eye;"  and  there  is  no  end  to  the 
catalogue  of  its  performances,  whether  in  indolent  vision 
(that  of  health  and  beauty)  or  in  strained  vision  (that  of 
art  and  labor).  35 

Eyes  are  bold  as  lions, — roving,  running,  leaping,  here  and 
there,  fur  and  near.     They  speak  all  languages.     They  wait 


160  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

for  no  introduction;  they  are  no  Englishmen;  ask  no  leave 
of  age  or  rank;  they  respect  neither  poverty  nor  riches, 
neither  learning  nor  power,  nor  virtue,  nor  sex,  but  intrude, 
and  come  again,  and  go  through  and  through  you,  in  a 
5  moment  of  time.  What  inundation  of  hfe  and  thought  is 
discharged  from  one  soul  into  another  through  them!  The 
glance  is  natural  magic.  The  mysterious  communication 
established  across  a  house  between  two  entire  strangers 
moves  all  the  springs  of  wonder.     The  communication  by 

lo  the  glance  is  in  the  greatest  part  not  subject  to  the  control  of 
the  will.  It  is  the  bodily  symbol  of  identity  of  nature.  We 
look  into  the  eyes  to  know  if  this  other  form  is  another  self, 
and  the  eyes  will  not  lie,  but  make  a  faithful  confession 
what  inhabitant  is  there.     The  revelations  are  sometimes 

15  terrific.  The  confession  of  a  low,  usurping  devil  is  there 
made,  and  the  observer  shall  seem  to  feel  the  stirring  of  owls, 
and  bats,  and  horned  hoofs,  where  he  looked  for  innocence 
and  simplicity.  'Tis  remarkable,  too,  that  the  spirit  that 
appears  at  the  windows  of  the  house  does  at  once  invest 

20  himself  in  a  new  form  of  his  own  to  the  mind  of  the  beholder. 

The  eyes  of  men  converse  as  much  as  their  tongues,  with 

the  advantage,  that  the  ocular  dialect  needs  no  dictionary, 

but  is  understood  all  the  world  over.     When  the  eyes  say  one 

thing,  and  the  tongue  another,  a  practised  man  relies  on 

25  the  language  of  the  first.  If  the  man  is  off  his  center,  the 
eyes  show  it.  You  can  read  in  the  eyes  of  your  companion, 
whether  your  argument  hits  him,  though  his  tongue  will  not 
confess  it.  There  is  a  look  by  which  a  man  shows  he  is  going 
to  say  a  good  thing,  and  a  look  when  he  has  said  it.     Vain 

30  and  forgotten  are  all  the  fine  offers  and  offices  of  hospitality, 
if  there  is  no  holiday  in  the  eye.  How  many  furtive  inclina- 
tions avowed  by  the  eye,  though  dissembled  by  the  lips! 
One  comes  away  from  a  company,  in  which,  it  may  easily 
happen,  he  has  said  nothing,  and  no  important  remark  has 

35  been  addressed  to  him,  and  yet,  if  in  sympathy  with  the 
society  he  shall  not  have  a  sense  of  this  fact,  such  a  stream 
of  life  has  been  flowing  into  him,  and  out  from  him,  through 


BEHAVIOR  IGl 

the  eyes.  There  are  eyes,  to  be  sure,  that  give  no  more 
admission  into  the  man  than  blue-berries.  Others  are 
liquid  and  deep, — wells  that  a  man  might  fall  into; — others 
are  aggressive  and  devouring,  seem  to  call  out  the  police, 
-take  all  too  much  notice,  and  require  crowded  Broadways,  5 
and  the  security  of  miUions,  to  protect  individuals  against 
them.  The  military  eye  I  meet,  now  darkly  sparkling  under 
clerical,  now  under  rustic  brows.  'Tis  the  city  of  Lacedaemon ; 
'tis  a  stack  of  bayonets.  There  are  asking  eyes,  asserting 
eyes,  prowling  eyes;  and  eyes  full  of  fate, — some  of  good,  and  10 
some  of  sinister  omen.  The  alleged  power  to  charm  down 
insanity,  or  ferocity  in  beasts,  is  a  power  behind  the  eye.  It 
must  be  a  victory  achieved  in  the  will  before  it  can  be  signified 
in  the  eye.  'Tis  very  certain  that  each  man  carries  in  his 
eye  the  exact  indication  of  his  rank  in  the  immense  scale  of  is 
men,  and  we  are  always  learning  to  read  it.  A  complete 
man  should  need  no  auxiliaries  to  his  personal  presence. 
Whoever  looked  on  him  would  consent  to  his  will,  being 
certified  that  his  aims  were  generous  and  universal.  The 
reason  why  men  do  not  obey  us,  is  because  they  see  the  mud  20 
at  the  bottom  of  our  eye. 

If  the  organ  of  sight  is  such  a  vehicle  of  power,  the  other 
features  have  their  own.  A  man  finds  room  in  the  few 
square  inches  of  the  face  for  the  traits  of  all  his  ancestors; 
for  the  expression  of  all  his  history,  and  his  wants.  The  25 
sculptor,  and  Winckelmann,  and  Lavater,  will  tell  you  how 
significant  a  feature  is  the  nose ;  how  its  forms  express  strength 
or  weakness  of  will,  and  good  or  bad  temper.  The  nose  of 
Julius  Cajsar,  of  Dante,  and  of  Pitt,  suggest  "  the  terrors  of 
the  beak."  What  refniement,  and  what  limitations,  the  30 
teeth  betray!  "  Beware  you  don't  laugh,"  said  the  wise 
mother,  "  for  then  you  show  all  your  faults." 

Balzac   left   in   manuscrij^t   a   chapter,   which   he   cd,lled 
"  Theorie  de  la  demarche,'"^  in  which  he  says:  "  The  look,  the 
voice,  the  respiration,  and  the  attitude  or  walk,  are  identical.  35 
But,  as  it  has  not  been  given  to  man,  the  power  to  stand 
1  Theory  of  frait  and  demeanor. 


162  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

guard,  at  once,  over  these  four  different  simultaneous  expres- 
sions of  his  thought,  watch  that  one  which  speaks  out  the 
truth,  and  you  will  know  the  whole  man." 

Palaces  interest  us  mainly  in  the  exhibition  of  manners, 

S  which,  in  the  idle  and  expensive  society  dwelling  in  them, 
are  raised  to  a  high  art.  The  maxim  of  courts  is,  that 
manner  is  power.  A  calm  and  resolute  bearing,  a  polished 
speech,  an  embellishment  of  trifles,  and  the  art  of  hiding  all 
uncomfortable  feeling,  are  essential  to  the  courtier:    and 

lo  Saint  Simon,  and  Cardinal  de  Retz,  and  Roederer,  and  an 
encyclopaedia  of  Memoires,  will  instruct  you,  if  you  wish,  in 
those  potent  secrets.  Thus,  it  i:  a  point  of  pride  with  kings 
to  remember  faces  and  names.  It  is  reported  of  one  prince, 
that  his  head  had  the  air  of  leaning  downwards,  in  order  not 

15  to  humble  the  crowd.  There  are  people  who  come  in  ever 
like  a  child  with  a  piece  of  good  news.  It  was  said  of  the 
late  Lord  Holland,  that  he  always  came  down  to  breakfast 
with  the  air  of  a  man  who  had  just  met  with  some  signal 
good-fortune.     In  Notre  Dame,  the  grandee  took  his  place 

20  on  the  dais,  with  the  look  of  one  who  is  thinking  of  some- 
thing else.  But  we  must  not  peep  and  eavesdrop  at  palace- 
doors. 

Fine  manners  need  the  support  of  fine  manners  in  others. 
A  scholar  may  be  a  well-bred  man,  or  he  may  not.     The 

25  enthusiast  is  introduced  to  polished  scholars  in  society,  and  is 
chilled  and  silenced  by  finding  himself  not  in  their  element. 
They  all  have  somewhat  which  he  has  not,  and,  it  seems, 
ought  to  have.  But  if  he  finds  the  scholar  apart  from  his 
companions,  it  is  then  the  enthusiast's  turn,  and  the  scholar 

30  has  no  defence,  but  must  deal  on  his  terms.  Now  they  must 
fight  the  battle  out  on  their  private  strengths.  What  is  the 
talent  of  that  character  so  common, — the  successful  man  of 
the  world, — in  all  marts,  senates,  and  drawing-rooms? 
Manners:  manners  of  power;  sense  to  see  his  advantage,  and 

35  manners  up  to  it.  See  him  approach  his  man.  He  knows 
that  troops  behave  as  they  are  handled  at  first; — that  is  his 
cheap  secret;   just  what  happens  to  every  two  persons  who 


BEHAVIOR  163 

meet  on  any  affair, — one  instantly  perceives  that  he  has 
the  key  of  the  situation,  that  his  will  comprehends  the 
other's  will,  as  the  cat  does  the  mouse;  and  he  has 
only  to  use  courtesy,  and  furnish  good-natured  reasons 
to  his  victim  to  cover  up  the  chain,  lest  he  be  shamed  into  5 
resistance. 

The  theater  in  which  this  science  of  manners  has  a  formal 
importance  is  not  with  us  a  court,  but  dress-circles,  wherein, 
after  the  close  of  the  day's  business,  men  and  women  meet 
at  leisure,  for  mutual  entertainment,  in  ornamented  drawing- 10 
rooms.  Of  course,  it  has  every  variety  of  attraction  and 
merit;  but,  to  earnest  persons,  to  youths  or  maidens  who 
have  great  objects  at  heart,  we  cannot  extol  it  highly.  A 
well-dressed,  talkative  company,  where  each  is  bent  to  amuse 
the  other, — yet  the  high-born  Turk  who  came  hither  fancied  15 
that  every  woman  seemed  to  be  suffering  for  a  chair;  that  all 
the  talkers  were  brained  and  exhausted  by  the  deoxygenated 
air;  it  spoiled  the  best  persons:  it  put  all  on  stilts.  Yet 
here  are  the  secret  biographies  written  and  read.  The  aspect 
of  that  man  is  repulsive;  I  do  not  wish  to  deal  with  him.  The  20 
other  is  irritable,  shy,  and  on  his  guard.  The  youth  looks 
humble  and  manly:  I  choose  him.  Look  on  this  woman. 
There  is  not  beauty,  nor  brilliant  sayings,  nor  distinguished 
power,  to  serve  you;  but  all  see  her  gladly;  her  whole  air 
and  impression  are  healthful.  Here  come  the  sentimentalists,  25 
and  the  invalids.  Here  is  Elise,  who  caught  cold  in  coming 
into  the  world,  and  has  always  increased  it  since.  Here  are 
creep-mouse  manners,  and  thievish  manners.  "  Look  at 
Northcote,"  said  Fuseli;  "  he  looks  like  a  rat  that  has  seen  a 
cat."  In  the  shallow  company,  easily  excited,  easily  tired,  30 
here  is  the  columnar  Bernard:  the  Alleghanies  do  not  express 
more  repose  than  his  behavior.  Here  are  the  sweet  following 
eyes  of  Cecile:  it  seemed  always  that  she  demanded  the 
heart.  Nothing  can  be  more  excellent  in  kind  than  the 
Corinthian  grace  of  Gertrude's  manners,  and  yet  Blanche,  35 
who  has  no  manners,  has  better  manners  than  she;  for  the 
movements  of  Blanche  are  the  sallies  of  a  spirit  which  is 


164  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

sufficient  for  the  moment,  and  she  can  afiford  to  express 
every  thought  by  instant  action. 

Manners  have  been  somewhat  cynically  defined  to  be  a 
contrivance  of  wise  men  to  keep  fools  at  a  distance.  Fashion 
5  is  shrewd  to  detect  those  who  do  not  belong  to  her  train,  and 
seldom  wastes  her  attentions.  Society  is  very  swift  in  its 
instincts,  and,  if  you  do  not  belong  to  it,  resists  and  sneers 
at  you;  or  quietly  drops  you.  The  first  weapon  enrages  the 
party  attacked;   the  second  is  still  more  effective,  but  is  not 

lo  to  be  resisted,  as  the  date  of  the  transaction  is  not  easily 

found.     People  grow  up  and  grow  old  under  this  infliction, 

and  never  suspect  the  truth,  ascribing  the  soHtude  which  acts 

on  them  very  injuriously  to  any  cause  but  the  right  one. 

The  basis  of  good  manners  is  self-reliance.     Necessity  is  the 

IS  law  of  all  who  are  not  self-possessed.  Those  who  are  not 
self-possessed,  obtrude,  and  pain  us.  Some  men  appear  to 
feel  that  they  belong  to  a  Pariah  caste.  They  fear  to  offend, 
they  bend  and  apologize,  and  walk  through  life  with  a  timid 
step.     As  we  sometimes  dream  that  we  are  in  a  well-dressed 

20  company  without  any  coat,  so  Godfrey  acts  ever  as  if  he 
suffered  from  some  mortifying  circumstance.  The  hero 
should  find  himself  at  home,  wherever  he  is;  should  impart 
comfort  by  his  own  security  and  good-nature  to  all  beholders. 
The  hero  is  suffered  to  be  himself.     A  person  of  strong  mind 

25  comes  to  perceive  that  for  him  an  immunity  is  secured  so 
long  as  he  renders  to  society  that  service  which  is  native  and 
proper  to  him, — an  immunity  from  all  the  observances,  yea, 
and  duties,  which  society  so  tyrannically  imposes  on  the  rank 
and  file  of  its  members.     "  Euripides,"  says  Aspasia,  "  has 

30  not  the  fine  manners  of  Sophocles;  but," — she  adds  good- 
humoredly,  "  the  movers  and  masters  of  our  souls  have 
surely  a  right  to  thrown  out  their  limbs  as  carelessly  as  they 
please  on  the  world  that  belongs  to  them,  and  before  the 
creatures  they  have  animated."  ^ 

35      Manners  require  time,  as  nothing  is  more  vulgar  than  haste. 
Friendship    should    be    surrounded    with    ceremonies    and 
^  From  Lander's  "  Pericles  and  Aspasia." 


BEHAVIOR  165 

respects,  and  not  crushed  into  corners.  Friendship  requires 
more  time  than  poor  busy  men  can  usually  command.  Here 
comes  to  me  Roland,  with  a  delicacy  of  sentiment  leading  "^ 

and  inwrapping  him  like  a  divine  cloud  or  holy  ghost.     'Tis 
a  great  destitution  to  both  that  this  should  not  be  entertained  5 
with  large  leisures,  but,  contrariwise,  should  be  balked  by 
importunate  affairs. 

But  through  this  lustrous  varnish  the  reality  is  ever  shin- 
ing. 'Tis  hard  to  keep  the  what  from  breaking  through  this 
pretty  painting  of  the  how.  The  core  will  come  to  the  sur- 10 
face.  Strong  will  and  keen  perception  overpower  old  manners 
and  create  new;  and  the  thought  of  the  present  moment 
has  a  greater  value  than  all  the  past.  In  persons  of  character, 
we  do  not  remark  manners,  because  of  their  instantaneousness. 
We  are  surprised  by  the  thing  done,  out  of  all  power  to  watch  15 
the  way  of  it.  Yet  nothing  is  more  charming  than  to  recog- 
nize the  great  style  which  runs  through  the  actions  of  such. 
People  masquerade  before  us  in  their  fortunes,  titles,  offices, 
and  connections,  as  academic  or  civil  presidents,  or  senators, 
or  professors,  or  great  lawyers,  and  impose  on  the  frivolous,  20 
and  a  good  deal  on  each  other,  by  these  fames.  At  least,  it 
is  a  point  of  prudent  good  manners  to  treat  these  reputations 
tenderly,  as  if  they  were  merited.  But  the  sad  realist  knows 
these  fellows  at  a  glance,  and  they  know  him;  as  when  in 
, Paris  the  chief  of  the  police  enters  a  ballroom,  so  many  dia-  25 
monded  pretenders  shrink  and  make  themselves  as  incon- 
spicuous as  they  can,  or  give  him  a  supplicating  look  as  they 
pass.  "  I  had  received,"  said  a  sybil,  "  I  had  received  at 
birth  the  fatal  gift  of  penetration:" — and  these  Cassandras 
are  always  born.  30 

Manners  impress  as  they  indicate  real  power.  A  man  who 
is  sure  of  his  point,  carries  a  broad  and  contented  expression, 
which  everybody  reads.  And  you  cannot  rightly  train  one 
to  an  air  and  manner,  except  by  making  him  the  kind  of  man 
of  whom  that  manner  is  the  natural  expression.  Nature  for35 
ever  puts  a  premium  on  reality.  What  is  done  for  effect,  is 
seen  to  be  done  for  effect;  what  is  done  for  love,  is  felt  to  be 


166  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

done  for  love.  A  man  inspires  affection  and  honor,  because 
he  was  not  lying  in  wait  for  these.  The  things  of  a  man  for 
which  we  visit  him,  were  done  in  the  dark  and  the  cold.  A 
little  integrity  is  better  than  any  career.  So  deep  are  the 
5  sources  of  this  surface-action,  that  even  the  size  of  your 
companion  seems  to  vary  with  his  freedom  of  thought. 
Not  only  is  he  larger,  w^hen  at  ease,  and  his  thoughts  generous, 
but  everything  around  him  becomes  variable  with  expression. 
No  carpenter's  rule,  no  rod  and  chain,  will  measure  the 

lo dimensions  of  any  house  or  house-lot:  go  into  the  house: 
if  the  proprietor  is  constrained  and  deferring,  'tis  of  no 
importance  how  large  his  house,  how  beautiful  his  grounds, — 
you  quickly  come  to  the  end  of  all;  but  if  the  man  is  self- 
possessed,  happy,  and  at  home,  his  house  is  deep-founded, 

15  indefinitely  large  and  interesting,  the  roof  and  dome  buoyant 
as  the  sky.  Under  the  humblest  roof,  the  commonest  person 
in  plain  clothes  sits  there  massive,  cheerful,  yet  formidable, 
like  the  Egyptian  colossi. 

Neither  Aristotle,  nor  Leibnitz,  nor  Junius,  nor  Cham- 

2opollion  has  set  down  the  grammar-rules  of  this  dialect, 
older  than  Sanscrit;  but  they  who  cannot  yet  read  English, 
can  read  this.  Men  take  each  other's  measure  when  they 
meet  for  the  first  time, — and  every  time  they  meet.  How 
do  they  get  this  rapid  knowledge,  even  before  they  speak,  of 

25  each  other's  power  and  dispositions?  One  would  say,  that 
the  persuasion  of  their  speech  is  not  in  what  they  say, — or, 
that  men  do  not  convince  by  their  argument, — but  by  their 
personality,  by  who  they  are,  and  what  they  said  and  did 
heretofore.     A  man  already  strong  is  listened  to,  and  every- 

30  thing  he  says  is  applauded.  Another  opposes  him  with 
sound  argument,  but  the  argument  is  scouted,  until  by-and- 
by  it  gets  into  the  mind  of  some  weighty  person;  then  it 
begins  to  tell  on  the  community. 

Self-reliance  is  the  basis  of  behavior,  as  it  is  the  guaranty 

35  that  the  powers  are  not  squandered  in  too  much  demonstra- 
tion. In  this  country,,  where  school  education  is  universal, 
we  have  a  superficial  culture,  and  a  profusion  of  reading  and 


BEHAVIOR  167 

writing  and  expression.  We  parade  our  nobilities  in  poems 
and  orations,  instead  of  working  them  up  into  happiness. 
There  is  a  whisper  out  of  the  ages  to  him  who  can  understand 
it, — "  Whatever  is  known  to  thyself  alone,  has  always  very 
great  value."  There  is  some  reason  to  believe,  that,  when  a  5 
man  does  not  write  his  poetry,  it  escapes  by  other  vents 
through  him,  instead  of  the  one  vent  of  writing;  clings  to  his 
form  and  manners,  whilst  poets  have  often  nothing  poetical 
about  them  except  their  verses.  Jacobi  said  that,  "  when 
a  man  has  fully  expressed  his  thought,  he  has  somewhat  less  10 
possession  of  it."  One  would  say,  the  rule  is, — What  a  man 
is  irresistibly  urged  to  say,  helps  him  and  us.  In  explaining 
his  thought  to  others,  he  explains  it  to  himself:  but  when  he 
opens  it  for  show,  it  corrupts  him. 

Society  is  the  stage  on  which  manners  are  shown;  novels  15 
are  their  Uterature.  Novels  are  the  journal  or  record  of 
manners;  and  the  new  importance  of  these  books  derives 
from  the  fact,  that  the  novelist  begins  to  penetrate  the  sur- 
face, and  treats  this  part  of  life  more  worthily.  The  novels 
used  to  be  all  alike,  and  had  a  quite  vulgar  tone.  The  novels  20 
used  to  lead  us  on  to  a  fooHsh  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
boy  and  girl  they  described.  The  boy  was  to  be  raised  from 
a  humble  to  a  high  position.  He  was  in  want  of  a  wife  and 
a  castle,  and  the  object  of  the  story  was  to  supply  him  with 
one  or  both.  We  watched  sympathetically,  step  by  stej),  his  25 
climbing,  until,  at  last,  the  point  is  gained,  the  wedding  day 
is  fixed,  and  we  follow  the  gala  procession  home  to  the  castle, 
when  the  doors  arc  slammed  in  our  face,  and  the  poor  reader 
is  left  outside  in  the  cold,  not  enriched  by  so  much  as  an  idea, 
or  a  virtuous  imi)ulse.  30 

But  the  victories  of  character  are  instant,  and  victories  for 
all.  Its  greatness  enlarges  all.  We  are  fortified  by  every 
heroic  anecdote.  The  novels  are  as  useful  as  Bibles,  if  they 
teach  you  the  secret,  that  the  best  of  life  is  conversation, 
and  the  greatest  success  is  confulencc,  or  perfect  under- 35 
standing  between  sincere  ])eople.  'Tis  a  French  definition  of 
friendship,   rien   que   s'cutouirc,   good   understanding.     The 


168  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

highest  compact  we  can  make  with  our  fellow  is, — "  Let 
there  be  truth  between  us  two  for  evermore."  That  is 
the  charm  in  all  good  novels,  as  it  is  the  charm  in  all 
good  histories,  that  the  heroes  mutually  understand, 
5  from  the  first,  and  deal  loyally,  and  with  a  profound 
trust  in  each  other.  It  is  sublime  to  feel  and  say  of 
another,  I  need  never  meet,  or  speak,  or  write  to  him:  we 
need  not  reinforce  ourselves,  or  send  tokens  of  remem- 
brance:   I  rely  on  him   as    on    myself:    if  he  did   thus  or 

lo  thus,  I  know  it  was  right. 

In  all  the  superior  people  I  have  met,  I  notice  directness, 
truth  spoken  more  truly,  as  if  everything  of  obstruction,  of 
malformation,  had  been  trained  away.  What  have  they  to 
conceal?   What  have  they  to  exhibit?    Between  simple  and 

15  noble  persons,  there  is  always  a  quick  intelligence:  they 
recognize  at  sight,  and  meet  on  a  better  ground  than  the 
talents  and  skills  they  may  chance  to  possess,  namely,  on 
sincerity  and  uprightness.  For,  it  is  not  what  talents  or 
genius  a  man  has,  but  how  he  is  lo  his  talents,  that  con- 

2ostitutes  friendship  and  character.  The  man  that  stands  by 
himself,  the  universe  stands  by  him  also.  It  is  related  of  the 
monk  Basle,  that,  being  excommunicated  by  the  Pope,  he 
was,  at  his  death,  sent  in  charge  of  an  angel  to  find  a  lit  place 
of  suffering  in  hell;   but,  such  was  the  eloquence  and  good- 

25  humor  of  the  monk,  that,  wherever  he  went,  he  v/as  received 
gladly,  and  civilly  treated,  even  by  the  most  uncivil  angels: 
and,  when  he  came  to  discourse  with  them,  instead  of  con- 
tradicting or  forcing  him,  they  took  his  part,  and  adopted 
his  manners:    and  even  good  angels  came  from  far  to  see 

30  him,  and  take  up  their  abode  with  him.  The  angel  that  was 
sent  to  find  a  place  of  torment  for  him,  attempted  to  remove 
him  to  a  worse  pit,  but  with  no  better  success;  for  such  was 
the  contented  spirit  of  the  monk,  that  he  found  something  to 
praise  in  every  place  and  company,  though  in  hell,  and  made 

35  a  kind  of  heaven  of  it.  At  last  the  escorting  angel  returned 
with  his  prisoner  to  them  that  sent  him,  saying,  that  no 
phlcgethon    could    be    found    that    would    burn    him;     for 


'  BEHAVIOR  169 

that,  in  whatever  condition,  Basle  remained  incorrigibly 
Basle.  The  legend  says,  his  sentence  was  remitted,  and 
he  was  allowed  to  go  into  heaven,  and  was  canonized 
as  a  saint. 

There  is  a  stroke  of  magnanimity  in  the  correspondence  s 
of  Bonaparte  with  his  brother  Joseph,  when  the  latter  was 
King  of  Spain,  and  complained  that  he  missed  in  Napoleon's 
letters  the  afifectionate  tone  which  had  marked  their  childish 
correspondence.  "  I  am  sorry,"  replies  Napoleon,  "you 
think  you  shall  find  your  brother  again  only  in  the  Elysian  lo 
Fields.  It  is  natural  that  at  forty  he  should  not  feel  towards 
you  as  he  did  at  twelve.  But  his  feelings  towards  you  have 
greater  truth  and  strength.  His  friendship  has  the  features 
of  his  mind." 

How  much  we  forgive  to  those  who  yield  us  the  rare  15 
spectacle  of  heroic  manners!  We  will  pardon  them  the  want 
of  books,  of  arts,  and  even  of  the  gentler  virtues.     How 
tenaciously  we  remember  them!    Here  is  a  lesson  which  I 
brought  along  with  me  in  boyhood  from  the  Latin  School, 
and  which  ranks  with  the  best  of  Roman  anecdotes.     Marcus  20 
Scaurus  was  accused  by  Quintus  Varius  Hispanus,  that  he 
had  excited  the  allies  to  take  arms  against  the  Republic. 
But  he,  full  of  firmness  and  gravity,  defended  himself  in  this 
manner:    "  Quintus  Varius  Hispanus  alleges  that  Marcus 
Scaurus,  President  of  the  Senate,  excited  the  allies  to  arms: 25 
Marcus  Scaurus,  President  of  the  Senate,  denies  it.     There 
is  no  witness.     Which   do  you   believe,   Romans?"    "  Utri 
creditis,  Qmritcs?  "    When  he  had  said  these  words,  he  was 
absolved  by  the  assemlily  of  the  i)e()plc. 

I  have  seen  manners  that  make  a  similar  impression  with 30 
personal  beauty;  that  give  the  like  exhilaration,  and  refme 
us  like  that;  and,  in  memorable  experiences,  they  ^  are 
suddenly  better  than  beauty,  and  make  that  superfluous  and 
ugly.  But  they  must  be  marked  by  fine  perception,  the 
acquaintance  with  real  ])eauty.  They  must  always  show 35 
self-control:  you  shall  not  be  facile,  a]K)logetic,  or  leaky,  but 
king  over  your  word;    and  every  gesture  and  action  shall 


170  RALril  WALDO  EMERSON 

indicate  power  at  rest.  Then  they  must  be  inspired  by  the 
good  heart.  There  is  no  beautifier  of  complexion,  or  form, 
or  behavior,  Uke  the  wish  to  scatter  joy  and  not  pain  around 
us.  'Tis  good  to  give  a  stranger  a  meal,  or  a  night's  lodging. 
5  'Tis  better  to  be  hospitable  to  his  good  meaning  and  thought, 
and  give  courage  to  a  companion.  We  must  be  as  courteous 
to  a  man  as  we  are  to  a  picture,  which  we  are  willing  to  give 
the  advantage  of  a  good  light.  Special  precepts  are  not  to 
be  thought  of:    the  talent  of  well-doing  contains  them  all. 

lo  Every  hour  will  show  a  duty  as  paramount  as  that  of  my 
whim  just  now;  and  yet  I  will  write  it, — that  there  is  one 
topic  peremptorily  forbidden  to  all  well-bred,  to  all  rational 
mortals,  namely,  their  distemipers.  If  you  have  not  slept,  or 
if  you  have  slept,  or  if  you  have  headache,  or  sciatica,  or 

15  leprosy,  or  thunder-stroke,  I  beseech  you,  by  all  angels,  to 
hold  your  ])eace,  and  not  pollute  the  morning,  to  which 
all  the  housemates  bring  serene  and  pleasant  thoughts,  by 
corruption  and  groans.  Come  out  in  the  azure.  Love  the 
day.     Do  not  leave  the  sky  out  of  your  landscape.     The 

20  oldest  and  the  most  deserving  person  should  come  very 
modestly  into  any  newly  awaked  company,  respecting  the 
divine  communications,  out  of  which  all  must  be  presumed 
to  have  newly  come.  An  old  man  who  added  an  elevating 
culture  to  a  large  experience  of  life,  said  to  me,  "  When  you 

25  come  into  the  room,  I  think  I  will  study  how  to  make 
humanity  beautiful  to  you." 

As  respects  the  delicate  question  of  culture,  I  do  not  think 
that  any  other  than  negative  rules  can  be  laid  down.  For 
positive  rules,  for  suggestion,  nature  alone  inspires  it.     Who 

30  dare  assume  to  guide  a  youth,  a  maid,  to  perfect  manners? — 
the  golden  mean  is  so  delicate,  difficult, — say  frankly  un- 
attainable. What  finest  hands  would  not  be  clumsy  to 
sketch  the  genial  precepts  of  the  young  girl's  demeanor? 
The  chances  seem  infinite  against  success;  and  yet  success  is 

35  continually  attained.  There  must  not  be  sccondariness,  and 
'tis  a  thousand  to  one  that  her  air  and  manner  will  at  once 
betray  that  she  is  not  primary,  but  that  there  is  some  other 


BEHAVIOR  171 

one  or  many  of  her  class,  to  whom  she  habitually  post- 
pones herself.  But  nature  lifts  her  easily,  and  without 
knowing  it,  over  these  impossibilities,  and  we  are  continually 
surprised  with  graces  and  felicities  not  only  unteachable, 
but  undescribable.  5 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  ^ 

Herbert  Spencer 

Some  who  shun  drawing-rooms  do  so  from  inability  to 
bear  the  restraints  prescribed  by  a  genuine  refinement, 
and  they  would  be  greatly  improved  by  being  kept  under 
these  restraints.  But  it  is  not  less  true  that,  by  adding  to 
5  the  legitimate  restraints,  which  are  based  on  convenience 
and  a  regard  for  others,  a  host  of  factitious  restraints  based 
only  on  convention,  the  refining  discipline,  which  would  else 
have  been  borne  with  benefit,  is  rendered  unbearable,  and 
so  misses  its  end.     Excess  of  government  invariably  defeats 

lo  itself  by  driving  away  those  to  be  governed.  And  if  over  all 
who  desert  its  entertainments  in  disgust  either  at  their 
emptiness  or  their  formality,  society  thus  loses  its  salutary 
influence — if  such  not  only  fail  to  receive  that  moral  culture 
which  the  company  of  ladies,   when  rationally  regulated, 

IS  would  give  them,  but,  in  default  of  other  relaxation,  are 
driven  into  habits  and  companionships  which  often  end  in 
gambling  and  drunkenness;  must  we  not  say  that  here,  too, 
is  an  evil  not  to  be  passed  over  as  insignificant? 

Then  consider  what  a  blighting  effect  these  multitudinous 

20  preparations  and  ceremonies  have  upon  the  pleasures  they 
profess  to  subserve.  Who,  on  calling  to  mind  the  occasions 
of  his  highest  social  enjoyments,  does  not  find  them  lo 
ha\'e  been  wholly  informal,  perhaps  impromptu?  How 
delightful  a  picnic  of  friends, who  forget  all  observances  save 

25  those  dictated  by  good  nature!  How  pleasant  the  little 
unpretended  gatherings  of  book-societies,  and  the  like; 
or  those  purely  accidental  meetings  of  a  few  people  well 

1  From  "  Jlluslratioiis  of  Universal  Progress,"  1864. 

172 


MANNERS  AND   FASHION  173 

known  to  each  other!  Then,  indeed,  we  may  see  that  "  a 
man  sharpeneth  the  countenance  of  his  friend."  Cheeks 
flush,  and  eyes  sparkle.  The  witty  grow  brilliant,  and  even 
the  dull  are  excited  into  saying  good  things.  There  is  an 
overflow  of  topics;  and  the  right  thought,  and  the  right  s 
words  to  put  it  in,  spring  up  unsought.  Grave  alternates 
with  gay:  now  serious  converse,  and  now  jokes,  anecdotes, 
and  playful  raillery.  Everyone's  best  nature  is  shown, 
everyone's  best  feelings  are  in  pleasurable  activity;  and, 
for  the  time,  life  seems  well  worth  having.  lo 

Go  now  and  dress  for  some  half-past  eight  dinner,  or  some 
ten  o'clock  "  at  home;"  and  present  yourself  in  spotless 
attire,  with  every  hair  arranged  to  perfection.  How  great 
the  difference!  The  enjoyment  seems  in  the  inverse  ratio 
of  the  preparation.  These  figures,  got  up  with  such  finish  15 
and  precision,  appear  but  half  alive.  They  have  frozen  each 
other  by  their  primness;  and  your  faculties  feel  the  numb- 
ing effects  of  the  atmosphere  the  moment  you  enter  it.  All 
those  thoughts,  so  nimble  and  so  apt  awhile  since,  have 
disappeared — have  suddenly  acquired  a  preternatural  power  20 
of  eluding  you.  If  you  venture  a  remark  to  your  neighbour, 
there  comes  a  trite  rejoinder,  and  there  it  ends.  No  subject 
you  can  hit  upon  outlives  half  a  dozen  sentences.  Nothing 
that  is  said  excites  any  real  interest  in  you;  and  you  feel 
that  all  you  say  is  listened  to  with  apathy.  By  some  strange  25 
magic,  things  that  usually  give  pleasure  seem  to  have  lost 
all  charm. 

You  have  a  taste  for  art.  Weary  of  frivolous  talk,  you 
turn  to  the  table,  and  find  that  the  book  of  engravings  and 
the  portfolio  of  photographs  arc  as  flat  as  the  conversation.  30 
You  are  fond  of  music.  Yet  the  singing,  good  as  it  is,  you 
hear  with  utter  indifference;  and  say  "  Thank  you  "  wi^th  a 
sense  of  being  a  profound  hypocrite.  Wholly  at  ease  though 
you  could  be,  for  your  own  part,  you  find  that  your  sym- 
pathies will  not  let  you.  You  see  young  gentlemen  feeling  35 
whether  their  ties  are  properly  adjusted,  looking  vacantly 
round,    and    considering    what    ihey    shall    do    next.     You 


174  HERBERT  SPENCER 

see  ladies  sitting  disconsolately,  waiting  for  some  one  to 
speak  to  them,  and  wishing  they  had  the  wherewith  to 
occupy  their  fingers.  You  see  the  hostess  standing  about 
the  doorway,  keeping  a  factitious  smile  on  her  face,  and 

5  racking  her  brain  to  find  the  requisite  nothings  with  which 
to  greet  her  guests  as  they  enter.  You  see  numberless 
traits  of  weariness  and  embarrassment;  and,  if  you  have 
any  fellow-feeling,  these  cannot  fail  to  produce  a  feeling  of 
discomfort.     The  disorder  is  catching;    and  do  what  you 

lowill  you  cannot  resist  the  general  infection.  You  struggle 
against  it;  you  make  spasmodic  efforts  to  be  lively;  but 
none  of  your  sallies  or  your  good  stories  do  more  than  raise 
a  simper  or  a  forced  laugh:  intellect  and  feeling  are  alike 
asphyxiated.     And  when,  at  length,  yielding  to  your  dis- 

15  gust,  you  rush  away,  how  great  is  the  rehef  when  you  get 
into  the  fresh  air,  and  see  the  stars!  How  you  "  Thank 
God,  that's  over!"  and  half  resolve  to  avoid  all  such  boredom 
for  the  future ! 

What,  now,  is  the  secret  of  this  perpetual  miscarriage  and 

2o  disappointment?  Does  not  the  fault  lie  with  all  these  needless 
adjuncts — these  elaborate  dressings,  these  set  forms,  these 
expensive  preparations,  these  many  devices  and  arrangements 
that  imply  trouble  and  raise  expectation?  Who  that  has 
lived  thirty  years  in   the  world  has  not  discovered  that 

25  Pleasure  is  coy;  and  must  not  be  too  directly  pursued,  but 
must  be  caught  unawares?  An  air  from  a  street-piano, 
heard  while  at  work,  will  often  gratify  more  than  the  choicest 
music  played  at  a  concert  by  the  most  accomplished  musi- 
cians.    A  single  good  picture  seen  in  a  dealer's  window,  may 

30  give  keener  enjoyment  than  a  whole  exhibition  gone  through 
with  catalogue  and  pencil.  By  the  time  we  have  got  ready 
our  elaborate  apparatus  by  which  to  secure  happiness,  the 
happiness  is  gone.  It  is  too  subtle  to  be  contained  in  these 
receivers,   garnished  with   comphments,   and   fenced   round 

35  with  etiquette.  The  more  we  multiply  and  complicate 
appliances,  the  more  certain  are  we  to  drive  it  away. 

The  reason  is  patent  enough.     These  higher  emotions  to 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  175 

which  social  intercourse  ministers,  are  of  extremely  complex 
nature;  they  consequently  depend  for  their  production  upon 
very  numerous  conditions;  the  more  numerous  the  condi- 
tions, the  greater  the  liability  that  one  or  other  of  them  will 
be  disturbed,  and  the  emotions  consequently  prevented,  s 
It  takes  a  considerable  misfortune  to  destroy  appetite;  but 
cordial  sympathy  with  those  around  may  be  extinguished 
by  a  look  or  a  word.  Hence  it  follows,  that  the  more 
multiplied  the  unnecessary  requirements  with  which  social 
intercourse  is  surrounded,  the  less  likely  are  its  pleasures  toio 
be  achieved.  It  is  difficult  enough  to  fulfil  continuously  all 
the  essentials  to  a  pleasurable  communion  with  others:  how 
much  more  difficult,  then,  must  it  be  continuously  to  fulfil 
a  host  of  non-essentials  also!  It  is,  indeed,  impossible.  The 
attempt  inevitably  ends  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  first  to  the  15 
last — the  essentials  to  the  non-essentials.  What  chance 
is  there  of  getting  any  genuine  response  from  the  lady  who  is 
thinking  of  your  stupidity  in  taking  her  in  to  dinner  on  the 
wrong  arm?  How  are  you  likely  to  have  agreeable  converse 
with  the  gentleman  who  is  fuming  internally  because  he  is  20 
not  placed  next  to  the  hostess?  Formalities,  familiar  as  they 
may  become,  necessarily  occupy  attention — necessarily 
multiply  the  occasions  for  mistake,  misunderstanding,  and 
jealousy,  on  the  part  of  one  or  other — necessarily  distract 
all  minds  from  the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  should  occupy  25 
them — necessarily,  therefore,  subvert  those  conditions  under 
which  only  any  sterling  intercourse  is  to  be  had. 

And  this  indeed  is  the  fatal  mischief  which  these  conven- 
tions entail — a  mischief  to  which  every  other  is  secondary. 
They  destroy  those  highest  of  our  jileasures  which  they  30 
profess  to  subserve.  All  institutions  are  alike  in  this, 
that  however  useful,  and  needful  even,  they  originallyvwere, 
they  not  only  in  the  end  cease  to  be  so,  but  become  detri- 
mental. While  humanity  is  growing,  they  continue  fixed; 
daily  get  more  mechanical  and  unvital;  and  by  and  by  tend 35 
to  strangle  what  they  before  preserved.  It  is  not  simjily 
that  they  become  corrupt  and  fail   to  act;    they  become 


176  HERBERT   SPENCER 

obstructions.  Old  forms  of  government  finally  grow  so 
oppressive,  that  they  must  be  thrown  off  even  at  the  risk 
of  reigns  of  terror.  Old  creeds  end  in  being  dead  formulas, 
which  no  longer  aid  but  distort  and  arrest  the  general  mind; 
S  while  the  State-churches  administering  them,  come  to  '' 
be  instruments  for  subsidising  conservatism  and  repressing 
progress.  Old  schemes  of  education,  incarnated  in  public 
schools  and  colleges,  continue  filling  the  heads  of  new 
generations  with  what  has  become  relatively  useless  knowl- 

loedge,  and,  by  consequence,  excluding  knowledge  which  is 
useful.     Not  an  organisation  of  any  kind — political,  religious,      N 
literary,  philanthropic — but  what,  by  its  ever-multiplying 
regulations,  its  accumulating  wealth,  its  yearly  addition  of 
officers,  and  the  creeping  into  it  of  patronage  and  party 

isfeehng,  eventually  loses  its  original  spirit,  and  sinks  into  a 
mere  lifeless  mechanism,  worked  with  a  view  to  private 
ends — a  mechanism  which  not  merely  fails  of  its  first  pur- 
pose, but  is  a  positive  hindrance  to  it. 

Thus  is  it,  too,  with  social  usages.    We  read  of  the  Chinese 

20 that  they  have  "ponderous  ceremonies  transmitted  from 
time  immemorial,"  which  make  social  intercourse  a  burden. 
The  court  forms  prescribed  by  monarchs  for  their  own 
exaltation,  have,  in  all  times  and  places,  ended  in  consuming 
the  comfort  of  their  lives.     And  so  the  artificial  observances 

25  of  the  dining-room  and  saloon,  in  proportion  as  they  are 
many  and  strict,  extinguish  that  agreeable  communion  which 
they  were  originally  intended  to  secure.  The  dislike  with 
which  people  commonly  speak  of  society  that  is  "  formal," 
and    "  stiff,"    and    "  ceremonious,"    impHes    the    general 

30 recognition  of  this  fact;  and  this  recognition,  logically 
developed,  involves  that  all  usages  of  behaviour  which  are 
not  based  on  natural  requirements,  are  injurious.  That 
these  conventions  defeat  their  own  ends  is  no  new  assertion. 
Swift,  criticising  the  manners  of  his  day,  says — "  Wise  men 

35  are  often  more  uneasy  at  the  over-civility  of  these  refiners 
than  they  could  possibly  be  in  the  conversation  of  peasants 
and  mechanics." 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  177 

But  it  is  not  only  in  these  details  that  the  self-defeating 
action  of  our  arrangements  is  traceable:  it  is  traceable 
in  the  very  substance  and  nature  of  them.  Our  social 
intercourse,  as  commonly  managed,  is  a  mere  semblance  of 
the  reality  sought.  What  is  it  that  we  want?  Some  sym-  5 
pathetic  converse  with  our  fellow-creatures:  some  converse 
that  shall  not  be  mere  dead  words,  but  the  vehicle  of  Hving 
thoughts  and  feelings — converse  in  which  the  eyes  and  the 
face  shall  speak,  and  the  tones  of  the  voice  be  full  of  mean- 
ing— converse  which  shall  make  us  feel  no  longer  alone,  10 
but  shall  draw  us  closer  to  another,  and  double  our  own 
emotions  by  adding  another's  to  them.  Who  is  there  that 
has  not,  from  time  to  time,  felt  how  cold  and  fiat  is  all  this 
talk  about  politics  and  science,  and  the  new  books  and  the 
new  men,  and  how  a  genuine  utterance  of  fellow-feeling  15 
outweighs  the  whole  of  it?  Mark  the  words  of  Bacon: — 
"  For  a  crowd  is  not  a  company,  and  faces  are  but  a  gallery 
of  pictures,  and  talk  but  a  tinkling  cymbal,  where  there  is 
no  love." 

If  this  be  true,  then  it  is  only  after  acquaintance  has  20 
grown  into  intimacy,  and  intimacy  has  ripened  into  friend- 
ship, that    the  real  communion  which  men  need  becomes 
possible.     A  rationally-formed   circle   must   consist   almost 
wholly  of  those  on  terms  of  familiarity  and  regard,  with  but 
one    or    two    strangers.     What    folly,    then,    underlies    the  25 
whole  system  of  our  grand  dinners,  our  "  at  homes,"  our 
evening  parties — assemblages  made  up  of  many  who  never 
met  before,  many  others  who  just  bow  to  each  other,  many 
others  who  though  familiar  feel  mutual  indifference,  with 
just  a  few  real  friends  lost  in  the  general  mass!     You  need 30 
but  look  round  at  the  artificial  expression  of  face,  to  see  at 
once  how  it  is.     All  have  their  disguises  on;    and  how  can 
there  be  sympathy  between  masks?    No  wonder  that  in 
I)rivate  every  one  exclaims  against  the  stupidity  of  these 
gatherings.     No  wonder  that  hostesses  get  them  up  rather 35 
because  they  must  than   because  they  wish.     No  wonder 
that  the  in\ite(l  go  less  from  the  expectation  of  pleasure 


178  HERBERT  SPENCER 

than   from  fear  of  giving  ofTence.     The  whole  thing  is  a 
gigantic  mistake — an  organised  disappointment. 

And  then  note,  lastly,  that  in  this  case,  as  in  all  others, 
when  an  organisation  has  become  efifete  and  inoperative 
S  for  its  legitimate  purpose,  it  is  employed  for  quite  other 
ones — quite  opposite  ones.  What  is  the  usual  plea  put 
in  for  giving  and  attending  these  tedious  assemblies?  "  I 
admit  that  they  are  stupid  and  frivolous  enough,"  replies 
every  man  to  your  criticisms;    "  but  then,  you  know,  one 

lomust  keep  up  one's  connections."  And  could  you  get  from 
his  wife  a  sincere  answer,  it  would  be — "  Like  you,  I  am  sick 
of  these  frivolities;  but  then,  we  must  get  our  daughters 
married."  The  one  knows  that  there  is  a  profession  to 
push,  a  practice  to  gain,  a  business  to  extend:  or  parliament- 

15  ary  influence,  or  county  patronage,  or  votes,  or  office,  to  be 
got:  position,  berths,  favours,  profit.  The  other's  thoughts 
run  upon  husbands  and  settlements,  wives  and  dowries. 
Worthless  for  their  ostensible  purpose  of  daily  bringing 
human  beings  into  pleasurable  relations  with  each  other, 

20  these  cumbrous  appliances  of  our  social  intercourse  are  now 

perseveringly  kept  in  action  with  a  view  to  the  pecuniary 

and    matrimonial    results    which    they    indirectly   produce. 

Who  then  shall  say  that  the  reform  of  our  system  of 

observances  is  uniniportant?   When  we  see  how  this  system 

25  induces  fashionable  extravagance,  with  its  entailed  bank- 
ruptcy and  ruin — when  we  mark  how  greatly  it  limits  the 
amount  of  social  intercourse  among  the  less  wealthy  classes 
■ — when  we  find  that  many  who  most  need  to  be  disciplined  by 
mixing  with  the  refined  are  driven  away  by  it,  and, led  into 

30  dangerous  and  often  fatal  courses — when  we  count  up  the 
many  minor  evils  it  inflicts,  the  extra  work  which  its  costli- 
ness entails  on  all  professional  and  mercantile  men,  the  damage 
to  public  taste  in  dress  and  decoration  by  the  setting  up  of 
its   absurdities   as   standards   for   imitation,    the   injury   to 

35  health  indicated  in  the  faces  of  its  devotees  at  the  close  of 
the  London  season,  the  mortality  of  milliners  and  the  like, 
which  its  sudden  exigencies  yearly  involve; — and  when  to 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  179 

all-tnese  we  add  its  fatal  sin,  that  it  blights,  withers  up,  and 
kills  that  high  enjoyment  it  professedly  ministers  to — that 
enjoyment  which  is  a  chief  end  of  our  hard  struggling  in 
life  to  obtain — shall  we  not  conclude  that  to  reform  our 
system  of  etiquette  and  fashion,  is  an  aim  yielding  to  few  in  S 
urgency? 

There  needs,  then,  a  protestantism  in  social  usages.  Forms 
that  have  ceased  to  facilitate  and  have  become  obstructive — 
whether  political,  religious,  or  other — have  ever  to  be  swept 
away;  and  eventually  are  so  swept  away  in  all  cases.  Signs  lo 
are  not  wanting  that  some  change  is  at  hand.  A  host  of 
satirists,  led  on  by  Thackeray,  have  been  for  years  engaged 
in  bringing  our  sham-festivities,  and  our  fashionable  follies, 
into  contempt;  and  in  their  candid  moods,  most  men  laugh 
at  the  frivolities  with  which  they  and  the  world  in  general  15 
are  deluded.  Ridicule  has  always  been  a  revolutionary 
agent.  That  which  is  habitually  assailed  with  sneers  and 
sarcasms  cannot  long  survive.  Institutions  that  have  lost 
their  roots  in  men's  respect  and  faith  are  doomed;  and  the 
day  of  their  dissolution  is  not  far  off.  The  time  is  approach-  20 
ing,  then,  when  our  system  of  social  observances  must  pass 
through  some  crisis,  out  of  which  it  will  come  purified  and 
comparatively  simple. 

How  this  crisis  will  be  brought  about,  no  one  can  with  any 
certainty  say.      Whether  by  the  continuance  and  increase  25 
of  individual  protests,  or  whether  by  the  union  of  many 
persons  for  the  practice  and  propagation  of  some  better 
system,    the    future    alone    can    decide.     The   influence   of 
dissentients  acting  without  cooperation,  seems,  under  the 
present    state    of    things,    inadequate.     Standing    severally  30 
alone,  and  having  no  well-defined  views;    frowned  on  by 
conformists,    and    expostulated    with    even    by    those   who 
secretly  sympathise  with  them;    subject  to  petty  persecu- 
tions, and  unable  to  trace  any  benefit  produced  by  their 
example;  they  are  apt,  one  by  one,  to  give  up  their  attempts 35 
as    hopeless.     The    young    convention-breaker    eventually 
finds  that  he  pays  too  heavily  for  his  nonconformity.     Hat- 


180  HERBERT  SPENCER 

ing,  for  example,  everything  that  bears  about  it  any  remnant 
of  serviUty,  he  determines,  in  the  ardour  of  his  independence, 
that  he  will  uncover  to  no  one.  But  what  he  means  simply 
as  a  general  protest,  he  finds  that  ladies  interpret  into  a 
S  personal  disrespect.  Though  he  sees  that,  from  the  days  of 
chivalry  downwards,  these  marks  of  supreme  consideration 
paid  to  the  other  sex  have  been  but  a  hypocritical  counter- 
part to  the  actual  subjection  in  which  men  have  held  them — 
a  pretended  submission  to  compensate  for  a  real  domina- 

lotion;  and  though  he  sees  that  when  the  true  dignity  of 
women  is  recognised,  the  mock  dignities  given  to  them  will 
be  abolished,  yet  he  does  not  like  to  be  thus  misunderstood, 
and  so  hesitates  in  his  practice. 

In  other  cases,  again,  his  courage  fails  him.     Such  of  his 

IS  unconventionalities  as  can  be  attributed  only  to  eccentricity, 
he  has  no  qualms  about:  for,  on  the  whole,  he  feels  rather 
complimented  than  otherwise  in  being  considered  a  dis- 
regarder  of  public  opinion.  But  when  they  are  liable  to  be 
put  down  to  ignorance,  to  ill-breeding,  or  to  poverty,  he 

20  becomes  a  coward.  However  clearly  the  recent  innovation 
of  eating  some  kinds  of  fish  with  knife  and  fork  proves  the 
fork-and-bread  practice  to  have  had  little  but  caprice  for 
its  basis,  yet  he  dares  not  wholly  ignore  that  practice  while 
fashion  partially  maintains  it.     Though  he  thinks  that  a 

25  silk  handkerchief  is  quite  as  appropriate  for  drawing-room 
use  as  a  white  cambric  one,  he  is  not  altogether  at  ease 
in  acting  out  his  opinion.  Then,  too,  be  begins  to  per- 
ceive that  his  resistance  to  prescription  brings  round  dis- 
advantageous  results  which  he   had   not    calculated   upon. 

30  He  had  expected  that  it  would  save  him  from  a  great  deal 
of  social  intercourse  of  a  frivolous  kind — that  it  would  offend 
the  fools,  but  not  the  sensible  people;  and  so  would  serve 
as  a  self-acting  test  by  which  those  worth  knowing  would 
be  separated  from  those  not  worth  knowing.     But  the  fools 

35  prove  to  be  so  greatly  in  the  majority  that,  by  offending 
them,  he  closes  against  himself  nearly  all  the  avenues  through 
which  the  sensible  people  are  to  be  reached.     Thus  he  finds 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  181 

/ 

that  his  nonconformity  is  frequently  misinterpreted;  that 
there  are  but  few  directions  in  which  he  dares  to  carry  it 
consistently  out;  that  the  annoyances  and  disadvantages 
which  it  brings  upon  him  are  greater  than  he  anticipated; 
and  that  the  chances  of  his  doing  any  good  are  very  remote.  5 
Hence  he  gradually  loses  resolution,  and  lapses,  step  by  step, 
into  the  ordinary  routine  of  observances. 

Abortive  as  individual  protests  thus  generally  turn  out, 
it  may  possibly  be  that  nothing  effectual  will  be  done  until 
there  arises  some  organised  resistance  to  this  invisible  despot-  lo 
ism,  by  which  our  modes  and  habits  are  dictated.  It  may 
happen,  that  the  government  of  Manners  and  Fashion  will 
be  rendered  less  tyrannical,  as  the  political  and  religious 
governments  have  been,  by  some  antagonistic  union.  Alike 
in  Church  and  State,  men's  first  emancipations  from  excess  is 
of  restriction  were  achieved  by  numbers,  bound  together  by 
a  common  creed  or  a  common  political  faith.  What  remained 
undone  while  there  were  but  individual  schismatics  or 
rebels,  was  eflected  when  there  came  to  be  many  acting  in 
concert.  It  is  tolerably  clear  that  these  earliest  instalments  20 
of  freedom  could  not  have  been  obtained  in  any  other  way; 
for  so  long  as  the  feeling  of  personal  independence  was 
weak  and  the  rule  strong,  there  could  never  have  been  a 
sufficient  number  of  separate  dissentients  to  produce  the 
desired  results.  Only  in  these  later  times,  during  which  the  25 
secular  and  spiritual  controls  have  been  growing  less  coercive, 
and  the  tendency  towards  individual  liberty  greater,  has  it 
become  possible  for  smaller  and  smaller  sects  and  parties 
to  fight  against  established  creeds  and  laws;  until  now 
men  may  safely  stand  even  alone  in  their  antagonism.  30 

The  failure  of  indi\-idual  nonconformity  to  customs,  as 
above  illustrated,  suggests  that  an  analogous  series  of  changes 
may  have  to  be  gone  through  in  this  case  also.  It  is  true  that 
the  lex  non  scripta  differs  from  the  lex  scripta  in  this,  that, 
being  unwritten,  it  is  more  readily  altered;  and  that  it  has, 35 
from  time  to  time,  been  quietly  ameliorated.  Nevertheless, 
we  shall   find   that   the   analogy  holds   substantially  good. 


182  HERBERT   SPENCER 

For  in  this  case,  as  in  the  others,  the  essential  revolution  is 
not  the  substituting  of  any  one  set  of  restraints  for  any- 
other,  but  the  limiting  or  abolishing  the  authority  which 
prescribes  restraints.  Just  as  the  fundamental  change 
S  inauguarated  by  the  Reformation,  was  not  a  superseding 
of  one  creed  by  another,  but  an  ignoring  of  the  arbiter  who 
before  dictated  creeds — just  as  the  fundamental  change 
which  Democracy  long  ago  commenced,  was  not  from  this 
particular  law  to  that,  but  from  the  despotism  of  one  to  the 

lo freedom  of  all;  so,  the  parallel  change  yet  to  be  wrought 
out  in  this  supplementary  government  of  which  we  are 
treating,  is  not  the  replacing  of  absurd  usages  by  sensible 
ones,  but  the  dethronement  of  that  secret,  irresponsible 
power  which  now  imposes  our  usages,  and  the  assertion  of 

IS  the  right  of  all  individuals  to  choose  their  own  usages.  In 
rules  of  living,  a  West-end  clique  is  our  Pope;  and  we  are 
all  papists,  with  but  a  mere  sprinkling  of  heretics.  On  all 
who  decisively  rebel,  comes  down  the  penalty  of  excom- 
munication, with  its  long  catalogue  of  disagreeable  and, 

20  indeed,  serious  consequences. 

The  liberty  of  the  subject  asserted  in  our  constitution, 
and  ever  on  the  increase,  has  yet  to  be  wrested  from  this 
subtler  tyranny.  The  right  of  private  judgment,  which 
our  ancestors  wrung  from  the  church,  remains  to  be  claimed 

25  from  this  dictator  of  our  habits.  Or,  as  before  said,  to  free 
us  from  these  idolatries  and  superstitious  conformities, 
there  has  still  to  come  a  protestantism  in  social  usages. 
Parallel,  therefore,  as  is  the  change  to  be  wrought  out,  it 
seems  not  improbable  that  it  may  be  wrought  out  in  an  anal- 

3oogous  way.  That  influence  which  solitary  dissentients  fail 
to  gain,  and  that  perseverance  which  they  lack,  may  come 
into  existence  when  they  unite.  That  persecution  which 
the  world  now  visits  upon  them  from  mistaking  their  non- 
conformity for  ignorance  or  disrespect,  may  diminish  when 

35  it  is  seen  to  result  from  principle.  The  penalty  which 
exclusion  now  entails  may  disappear  when  they  become 
numerous   enough   to   form   visiting   circles   of   their   own. 


MANNERS  AND  FASHION  183 

And  when  a  successful  stand  has  been  made,  and  the  brunt 
of  the  opposition  has  passed,  that  large  amount  of  secret 
dislike  to  our  observances  which  now  pervades  society, 
may  manifest  itself  with  sufficient  power  to  effect  the  desired 
emancipation.  S 

Whether  such  will  be  the  process,  time  alone  can  decide. 
That  community  of  origin,  growth,  supremacy,  and  decadence 
which  we  have  found  among  all  kinds  of  government,  sug- 
gests a  community  in  modes  of  change  also.  On  the  other 
hand.  Nature  often  performs  substantially  similar  opera-  ro 
tions,  in  ways  apparently  different.  Hence  these  details 
can  never  be  foretold. 

Society,  in  all  its  developments,  undergoes  the  process 
of  exuviation.  These  old  forms  which  it  successively  throws 
off,  have  all  been  once  vitally  united  with  it — have  severally  15 
served  as  the  protective  envelopes  within  which  a  higher 
humanity  was  being  evolved.  They  are  cast  aside  only 
when  they  become  hindrances — only  when  some  inner  and 
better  envelope  has  been  formed;  and  they  bequeath  to 
us  all  that  there  was  in  them  of  good.  The  periodical  aboli-  20 
tions  of  tyrannical  laws  have  left  the  administration  of 
justice  not  only  uninjured,  but  purified.  Dead  and  buried 
creeds  have  not  carried  with  them  the  essential  morality 
they  contained,  which  still  exists,  uncontaminated  by  the 
sloughs  of  superstition.  And  all  that  there  is  of  justice  and  25 
kindness  and  beauty,  embodied  in  our  cumbrous  forms  of 
etiquette,  will  live  perennially  when  the  forms  themselves 
have  been  forgotten. 


TALK  AND  TALKERS  ^ 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

"  Sir,  we  had  a  good  talk." — Johnson. 

"  As  we  must  account  for  every  idle  word,  so  we  must  for  every  idle 
silence." — Franklin. 

There  can  be  no  fairer  ambition  than  to  excel  in  talk; 
to  be  affable,  gay,  ready,  clear  and  welcome;  to  have  a 
fact,  a  thought,  or  an  illustration,  pat  to  every  subject; 
and  not  only  to  cheer  the  flight  of  time  among  our  intimates", 
5  but  bear  our  part  in  that  great  international  congress,  always 
sitting,  where  public  wrongs  are  first  declared,  public  errors 
first  corrected,  and  the  course  of  public  opinion  shaped, 
day  by  day,  a  little  nearer  to  the  right.  No  measure  comes 
before  Parhament  but  it  has  been  long  ago  prepared  by  the 

lo grand  jury  of  the  talkers;  no  book  is  written  that  has  not 
been  largely  composed  by  their  assistance.  Literature  in 
many  of  its  branches  is  no  other  than  the  shadow  of  good 
talk;  but  the  imitation  falls  far  short  of  the  original  in  Ufe, 
freedom,  and  effect.     There  are  always  two  to  a  talk,  giving 

IS  and  taking,  comparing  experience  and  according  conclusions. 
Talk  is  fluid,  tentative,  continually  "  in  further  search  and 
progress;"  while  written  words  remain  fixed,  become  idols 
even  to  the  writer,  found  wooden  dogmatisms,  and  preserve 
flies  of  obvious  error  in  the  amber  of  the  truth.     Last  and 

20  chief,  while  literature,  gagged  with  linsey-woolsey,  can 
only  deal  with  a  fraction  of  the  life  of  man,  talk  goes  fancy 

'  The  first  of  two  papers  on  this  subject  written  in  1881-2;  reprinted 
here,  by  permission  of  the  publishers,  from  "  Memories  and  Portraits  " 
in  the  Biographical  Edition  of  Stevenson's  Works,  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons,  1907. 

184 


/  TALK  AND  TALKERS  185 

\ 
\ 

free  and  may  call  a  spade  a  spade.  It  cannot,  even  if  it 
would,  become  merely  aesthetic  or  merely  classical  like 
literature.  A  jest  intervenes,  the  solemn  humbug  is  dis- 
solved in  laughter,  and  speech  runs  forth  out  of  the  con- 
temporary groove  into  the  open  fields  of  nature,  cheery  and  s 
cheering,  Hke  schoolboys  out  of  school.  And  it  is  in  talk 
alone  that  we  can  learn  our  period  and  ourselves.  In  short, 
the  first  duty  of  a  man  is  to  speak;  that  is  his  chief  business 
in  this  world;  and  talk,  which  is  the  harmonious  speech  of 
two  or  more,  is  by  far  the  most  accessible  of  pleasures.  Itio 
costs  nothing  in  money;  it  is  all  profit;  it  completes  our 
education,  founds  and  fosters  our  friendships,  and  can  be 
enjoyed  at  any  age  and  in  almost  any  state  of  health. 

The  spice  of  life  is  battle;    the  friendliest  relations  are 
still  a  kind  of  contest;  and  if  we  would  not  forego  all  that  is  15 
valuable  in  our  lot,  we  must  continually  face  some  other  per- 
son, eye  to  eye,  and  wrestle  a  fall  whether  in  love  or  enmity. 
It  is  still  by  force  of  body,  or  power  of  character  or  intellect, 
that    we    attain    to   worthy    pleasures.     Men   and   women 
contend  for  each  other  in  the  lists  of  love,  like  rival  mes-  20 
merists;    the  active  and  adroit  decide  their  challenges  in 
the  sports  of  the  body;   and  the  sedentary  sit  down  to  chess 
or    conversation.     All  sluggish    and    pacific   pleasures  are, 
to  the  same-degree,  solitary  and  selfish;    and  every  dura- 
ble bond   between  human  beings  is  founded  in  or  height-  25 
ened  by  some  element  of  competition.     Now,  the  relation 
that  has  the  least  root  in  matter  is  undoubtedly  that  airy 
one  of  friendship;  and  hence,  I  suppose,  it  is  that  good  talk 
most    commonly    arises   among   friends.     Talk   is,    indeed, 
both  the  scene  and  instrument  of  friendship.     It  is  in  talk  30 
alone  that  the  friends  can  measure  strength,  and  enjoy  that 
amicable  counter-assertion  of  personality  which  is  the  gauge 
of  relations  and  the  sport  of  life. 

A  good  talk  is  not  to  be  had  for  the  asking.     Humours 
must  first  be  accorded  in  a  kind  of  overture  or  prologue; 35 
hour,  company  and  circumstance  be  suited;    and  then,  at 
a  fit  juncture,  the  subject,  the  quarry  of  two  heated  minds. 


186  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

springs  up  like  a  deer  out  of  the  wood.  Not  that  the  talker 
has  any  of  the  hunter's  pride,  though  he  has  all  and  more 
than  all  his  ardour.  The  genuine  artist  follows  th,e  stream 
of  conversation  as  an  angler  follows  the  windings  of  a  brook, 
snot  dallying  where  he  fails  to  "  kill."  He  trusts  implicitly 
to  hazard;  and  he  is  rewarded  by  continual  variety,  con- 
tinual pleasure,  and  those  changing  prospects  of  the  truth 
that  are  the  best  of  education.  There  is  nothing  in  a  sub- 
ject, so  called,  that  we  should  regard  it  as  an  idol,  or  follow 

loit  beyond  the  promptings  of  desire.  Indeed,  there  are  few 
subjects;  and  so  far  as  they  are  truly  talkable,  more  than 
the  half  of  them  may  be  reduced  to  three:  that  I  am  I, 
that  you  are  you,  and  that  there  are  other  people  dimly 
understood  to  be  not  quite  the  same  as  either.     Wherever 

15  talk  may  range,  it  still  runs  half  the  time  on  these  eternal 
lines.  The  theme  being  set,  each  plays  on  himself  as  on 
an  instrument;  asserts  and  justifies  himself;  ransacks 
his  brain  for  instances  and  opinions,  and  brings  them  forth 
new-minted,  to  his  own  surprise  and  the  admiration  of  his 

20 adversary.  All  natural  talk  is  a  festival  of  ostentation; 
and  by  the  laws  of  the  game  each  accepts  and  fans  the 
vanity  of  the  other.  It  is  from  that  reason  that  we  ven- 
ture to  lay  ourselves  so  open,  that  we  dare  to  be  so 
warmly  eloquent,  and  that  we  swell  in  each  other's  eyes 

25  to  such  a  vast  proportion.  For  talkers,  once  launched, 
begin  to  overflow  the  limits  of  their  ordinary  selves,  tower 
up  to  the  height  of  their  secret  pretensions,  and  give  them- 
selves out  for  the  heroes,  brave,  pious,  musical,  and  wise, 
that  in  their  most  shining  moments  they  aspire  to  be.     So 

30  they  weave  for  themselves  with  words  and  for  a  while 
inhabit  a  palace  of  delights,  temple  at  once  and  theatre, 
where  they  fill  the  round  of  the  world's  dignities,  and  feast 
with  the  gods,  exulting  in  Kudos. ^  And  when  the  talk  is 
over,  each  goes  his  way,  still  flushed  with  vanity  and  admira- 

35  tion,  still  trailing  clouds  of  glory;  each  declines  from  the 
height  of  his  ideal  orgy,  not  in  a  moment,  but  by  slow 
^  Kudos  (Greek) :  glory. 


TALK  AND  TALKERS  187 

/    . 
.de<ilension.     I  remember,  in  the  entr'acte  of  an  afternoon 

performance,  coming  forth  into  the  sunshine,  in  a  beautiful 
green,  gardened  corner  of  a  romantic  city;  and  as  I  sat 
and  smoked,  the  music  moving  in  my  blood,  I  seemed  to 
sit  there  and  evaporate  The  Flying  Dutchman  (for  it  was  5 
that  I  had  been  hearing)  with  a  wonderful  sense  of  Hfe, 
warmth,  well-being,  and  pride;  and  the  noises  of  the  city, 
voices,  bells  and  marching  feet,  fell  together  in  my  ears 
like  a  symphonious  orchestra.  In  the  same  way,  the  excite- 
ment of  a  good  talk  lives  for  a  long  while  after  in  the  blood,  10 
the  heart  still  hot  within  you,  the  brain  still  simmering,  and 
the  physical  earth  swimming  around  you  with  the  colours 
of  the  sunset. 

Natural    talk,    Uke   ploughing,    should   turn   up   a   large 
surface  of  Ufe,  rather  than  dig  mines  into  geological  strata.  15 
Masses  of  experience,  anecdote,  incident,  cross-lights,  quo- 
tation, historical  instances,  the  whole  flotsam  and  jetsam 
of  two  minds  forced  in  and  in  upon  the  matter  in  hand 
from  every  point  of  the  compass,  and  from  every  degree 
of  mental  elevation  and  abasement — these  are  the  material  20 
with  which  talk  is  fortified,  the  food  on  which  the  talkers 
thrive.     Such  argument  as  is  proper  to  the  exercise  should 
still  be  brief  and  seizing.     Talk  should  proceed  by  instances; 
by  the  apposite,  not  the  expository.     It  should  keep  close 
along  the  lines  of  humanity,  near  the  bosoms  and  businesses  25 
of  men,  at  the  level  where  history,  fiction  and  experience 
intersect  and  illuminate  each  other.     I  am  I,  and  You  are 
You,  with  all  my  heart;    but  conceive  how  these  lean  prop- 
ositions   change    and     brighten    when,    instead    of    words, 
the  actual  you  and  I  sit  cheek  by  jowl,  the  spirit  housed  30 
in  the  live  body,  and  the  very  clothes  uttering  voices  to 
corroborate  the  story  in  the  face.     Not  less  surprising  is 
the  change  when   we  leave  oil  to  speak  of  generalities — 
the  bad,  the  good,  the  miser,  and  all  the  characters  of  Theo- 
phrastus — and  call  up  other  men,  by  anecdote  or  instance,  35 
in  their  very  trick  and  feature;    or  trading  on  a  common 
knowledge,    toss   each   other   famous   names,   still   glowing 


188  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

with  the  hues  of  Hfe.  Communication  is  no  longer  by 
words,  but  by  the  instancing  of  whole  biographies,  epics, 
systems  of  philosophy,  and  epochs  of  history,  in  bulk.  That 
which  is  understood  excels  that  which  is  spoken  in  quantity 
5  and  quality  alike;  ideas  thus  figured  and  personified,  change 
hands,  as  we  may  say,  Kke  coin;  and  the  speakers  imply 
without  effort  the  most  obscure  and  intricate  thoughts. 
Strangers  who  have  a  large  common  ground  of  reading  will, 
for  this  reason,  come  the  sooner  to  the  grapple  of  genuine 

lo  converse.     If  they  know  Othello  and  Napoleon,  Consuelo 

and  Clarissa  Harlowe,  Vautrin  and  Steenie  Stecnson,  they 

can  leave  generalities  and  begin  at  once  to  speak  by  figures. 

Conduct  and  art  are  the  two  subjects  that  arise  most 

frequently  and   that   embrace   the   widest   range  of  facts. 

15  A  few  pleasures  bear  discussion  for  their  own  sake,  but- 
only  those  which  are  most  social  or  most  radically  human; 
and  even  these  can  only  be  discussed  among  their  devotees. 
A  technicality  is  always  welcome  to  the  exj^ert,  whether 
in  athletics,  art,  or  law;   I  have  heard  the  best  kind  of  talk 

20  on  technicalities  from  such  rare  and  happy  persons  as  both 
know  and  love  their  business.  No  human  being  ever  spoke 
of  scenery  for  above  two  minutes  at  a  time,  which  makes 
me  suspect  we  hear  too  much  of  it  in  literature.  The 
weather  is  r(  ;^ivrdcel  as  ihe  very  nadir  and  scoff  of  conversa- 

25  tional  topics.  And  yet  the  weather,  the  dramatic  element 
in  scenery,  is  far  more  tractable  in  language,  and  far  more 
human  both  in  import  and  suggestion  than  the  stable 
features  of  the  landscape.  Sailors  and  shepherds,  and  the 
people  generally  of  coast  and  mountain,   talk  well  of  it; 

30  and  it  is  often  excitingly  presented  in  literature.  But  the 
tendency  of  all  living  talk  draws  it  back  and  back  into  the 
common  focus  of  humanity.  Talk  is  a  creature  of  the  street 
and  market-place,  feeding  on  gossip;  and  its  last  resort 
is  still  in  a  discussion  on  morals.     That  is  the  heroic  form  of 

35  gossip;  heroic  in  virtue  of  its  high  pretensions;  but  still 
gossip,  because  it  turns  on  personalities.  You  can  keep 
no  men  long,  nor  Scotchmen  at  all,  off  moral  or  theological 


,/  TALK  AND  TALKERS  189 

discussion.  These  are  to  all  the  world  what  law  is  to  lawyers; 
they  are  everybody's  technicalities;  the  medium  through 
which  all  consider  life,  and  the  dialect  in  which  they  express 
their  judgments.  I  knew  three  young  men  who  walked 
together  daily  for  some  two  months  in  a  solemn  and  beau-  5 
tiful  forest  and  in  cloudless  summer  weather;  daily  they 
talked  with  unabated  zest,  and  yet  scarce  wandered  that 
whole  time  beyond  two  subjects — theology  and  love.  And 
perhaps  neither  a  court  of  love  '  nor  an  assembly  of  divines 
would  have  granted  their  premises  or  welcomed  their  con-io 
elusions. 

Conclusions,  indeed,  are  not  often  reached  by  talk  any 
more  than  by  private  thinking.  That  is  not  the  profit. 
The  profit  is  in  the  exercise,  and  above  all  in  the  experience; 
for  when  we  reason  at  large  on  any  subject,  we  review  our  15 
state  and  history  in  life.  From  time  to  time,  however,  and 
specially,  I  think,  in  talking  art,  talk  becomes  effective,  con- 
quering like  war,  widening  the  boundaries  of  knowledge 
like  an  exploration.  A  point  arises;  the  question  takes  a 
problematical,  a  bafiding,  yet  a  likely  air;  the  talkers  begin  20 
to  feel  lively  presentiments  of  some  conclusion  near  at 
hand;  towards  this  they  strive  with  emulous  ardour,  each 
by  his  own  path,  and  struggling  for  first  utterance;  and  then 
one  leaps  upon  the  summit  of  that  matter  with  a  shout, 
and  almost  at  the  same  moment  the  other  is  beside  him;  25 
and  behold  they  are  agreed.  Like  enough,  the  progress  is 
illusory,  a  mere  cat's  cradle  having  been  wound  and  un- 
wound out  of  words.  But  the  sense  of  joint  discovery  is 
none  the  less  giddy  and  inspiriting.  And  in  the  life  of  the 
talker  such  triumphs,  though  imaginary,  are  neither  few  30 
nor  far  apart;  they  are  attained  with  speed  and  pleasure, 
in  the  hour  of  mirth;  and  by  the  nature  of  the  process, 
they  are  always  worthily  shared. 

There  is  a  certain  attitude  combative  at  once  and  defer- 
ential,  eager   to   fight   yet   most   averse   to  quarrel,  which  35 

1  Court  of  love:  a  mediaeval  institution  for  the  discussion  of  questions 
of  chivalry. 


190  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

marks  out  at  once  the  talkable  man.  It  is  not  eloquence, 
not  fairness,  not  obstinacy,  but  a  certain  proportion  of  all 
of  these  that  I  love  to  encounter  in  my  amidable  adversar- 
ies. They  must  not  be  pontiffs  holding  doctrine,  but  hunts- 
S  men  questing  after  elements  of  truth.  Neither  must  they 
be  boys  to  be  instructed,  but  fellow-teachers  with  whom  I 
may  wrangle  and  agree  on  equal  terms.  We  must  reach 
some  solution,  some  shadow  of  consent;  for  without  that, 
eager  talk  becomes  a  torture.     But  we  do  not  wish  to  reach 

loit  cheaply,  or  quickly,  or  without  the  tussle  and  effort 
wherein  pleasure  lies. 

The  very  best  talker,  with  me,  is  one  w^hom  I  shall  call 
Spring-Heel'd  Jack.  I  say  so,  because  I  never  knew  any 
one   who   mingled   so   largely   the   possible   ingredients   of 

15  converse.  In  the  Spanish  proverb,  the  fourth  man  neces- 
sary to  compound  a  salad,  is  a  madman  to  mix  it:  Jack  is 
that  madman.  I  know  not  which  is  more  remarkable:  the 
insane  lucidity  of  his  conclusions,  the  humorous  eloquence 
of  his  language,  or  his  power  of  method,  bringing  the  whole 

20  of  life  into  the  focus  of  the  subject  treated,  mixing  the  con- 
versational salad  like  a  drunken  god.  He  doubles  like 
the  serpent,  changes  and  flashes  like  the  shaken  kaleido- 
scope, transmigrates  bodily  into  the  views  of  others,  and  so, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  and  with  a  heady  rapture,  turns 

25  questions  inside  out  and  flings  them  empty  before  you  on 
the  ground,  like  a  triumphant  conjuror.  It  is  my  common 
practice  when  a  piece  of  conduct  puzzles  me,  to  attack  it 
in  the  presence  of  Jack  with  such  grossness,  such  partiality 
and  such  wearing  iteration,  as  at  length  shall  spur  him  up 

30  in  its  defence.  In  a  moment  he  transmigrates,  dons  the 
required  character,  and  with  moonstruck  philosophy  justifies 
the  act  in  question.  I  can  fancy  nothing  to  compare  with 
the  vim  of  these  impersonations,  the  strange  scale  of  language, 
flying  from  Shakespeare  to  Kant,  and  from  Kant  to  Major 

35  Dyngwell— 

"  As  fast  as  a  musician  scatters  sounds 
Out  of  an  instrument — •" 


^^^^^  TALK  AND  TALKERS  191 

the  sudden,  sweeping  generalisations,  the  absurd  irrelevant 
particularities,  the  wit,  wisdom,  folly,  humour,  eloquence 
and  bathos,  each  startling  in  its  kind,  and  yet  all  luminous 
in  the  admired  disorder  of  their  combination.  A  talker  of 
a  different  calibre,  though  belonging  to  the  same  school,  is  S 
Burly.  Burly  is  a  man  of  great  presence;  he  commands  a 
larger  atmosphere,  gives  the  impression  of  a  grosser  mass 
of  character  than  most  men.  It  has  been  said  of  him  that 
his  presence  could  be  felt  in  a  room  you  entered  blindfold; 
and  the  same,  I  think,  has  been  said  of  other  powerful  con-  lo 
stitutions  condemned  to  much  physical  inaction.  There 
is  something  boisterous  and  piratic  in  Burly's  manner  of 
talk  which  suits  well  enough  with  this  impression.  He 
will  roar  you  down,  he  will  bury  his  face  in  his  hands,  he 
will  undergo  passions  of  revolt  and  agony;  and  meanwhile  15 
his  attitude  of  mind  is  really  both  conciliatory  and  receptive; 
and  after  Pistol  has  been  out-Pistol'd,  and  the  welkin  rung 
for  hours,  you  begin  to  perceive  a  certain  subsidence  in  these 
spring  torrents,  points  of  agreement  issue,  and  you  end  arm- 
in-arm,  and  in  a  glow  of  mutual  admiration.  The  outcry  20 
only  serves  to  make  your  fmal  union  the  more  unexpected 
and  precious.  Throughout  there  has  been  perfect  sincerity, 
perfect  intelligence,  a  desire  to  hear  although  not  always  to 
listen,  and  an  unaffected  eagerness  to  meet  concessions. 
You  have,  with  Burly,  none  of  the  dangers  that  attend  25 
debate  with  Spring-Heel'd  Jack;  who  may  at  any  moment 
turn  his  powers  of  transmigration  on  yourself,  create  for 
you  a  view  you  never  held,  and  then  furiously  fall  on  you 
for  holding  it.  These,  at  least,  are  my  two  favourites, 
and  both  are  loud,  copious,  intolerant  talkers.  This  argues  30 
that  I  m3'self  am  in  the  same  category;  for  if  we  love  talk- 
ing at  all,  we  love  a  bright,  fierce  adversary,  who  will  hold 
his  ground,  foot  by  foot,  in  much  our  own  manner,  sell 
his  attention  dearly,  and  give  us  our  full  measure  of  the  dust 
and  exertion  of  battle.  Both  these  men  can  be  beat  from  35 
a  position,  but  it  takes  six  hours  to  do  it;  a  high  and  hard 
adventure,    worth   attempting.     With   both   you   can   pass 


192        ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

days  in  an  enchanted  country  of  the  mind,  with  people, 
scenery  and  manners  of  its  own;  live  a^life  apart,  more 
arduous,  active  and  glowing  than  any  real  existence;  and 
come  forth  again  when  the  talk  is  over,  as  out  of  a  theatre 
S  or  a  dream,  to  find  the  east  wind  still  blowing  and  the  chim- 
ney-pots of  the  old  battered  city  still  around  you.  Jack 
has  the  far  finer  mind,  Burly  the  far  more  honest;  Jack 
gives  us  the  animated  poetry,  Burly  the  romantic  prose,  of 
similar  themes;  the  one  glances  high  like  a  meteor  and  makes 

loa  light  in  darkness;  the  other,  with  many  changing  hues  of 
fire,  burns  at  the  sea-level,  like  a  conflagration;  but  both 
have  the  same  humour  and  artistic  interests,  the  same  un- 
quenched  ardour  in  pursuit,  the  same  gusts  of  talk  and  thun- 
derclaps of  contradiction. 

15  Cockshot  ^  is  a  different  article,  but  vastly  entertaining, 
and  has  been  meat  and  drink  to  me  for  many  a  long  evening. 
His  manner  is  dry,  brisk  and  pertinacious,  and  the  choice 
of  words  not  much.  The  point  about  him  is  his  extraor- 
dinary readiness  and  spirit.     You  can  propound  nothing 

20  but  he  has  either  a  theory  about  it  ready-made,  or  will 
have  one  instantly  on  the  stocks,  and  proceed  to  lay  its 
timbers  and  launch  it  in  your  presence.  "  Let  me  see," 
he  will  say.  "  Give  me  a  moment.  I  should  have  some 
theory    for    that."     A    blither    spectacle    than    the    vigour 

25  with  which  he  sets  about  the  task,  it  were  hard  to  fancy. 
He  is  possessed  by  a  demoniac  energy,  welding  the  elements 
for  his  life,  and  bending  ideas,  as  an  athlete  bends  a  horse- 
shoe, with  a  visible  and  lively  effort.  He  has,  in  theorising, 
a  compass,  an  art;    wha't  I  would  call  the  synthetic  gusto; 

30  something  of  a  Herbert  Spencer,  who  should  see  the  fun  of 
the  thing.  You  are  not  bound,  and  no  more  is  he,  to  place 
your  faith  in  these  brand-new  opinions.  But  some  of  them 
are  right  enough,  durable  even  for  life;  and  the  poorest 
serve  for  a  cock-shy — as  when  idle  people,  after  picnics, 

35  float  a  bottle  on  a  pond  and  have  an  hour's  diversion  ere 
it  sinks.  Whichever  they  are,  serious  opinions  or  humours 
1  The  Late  Fleeming  Jenkin — Author's  note. 


"^  TALK  AND  TALKERS  193 

of  the  moment,  he  still  defends  his  ventures  with  inde- 
fatigable wit  and  spirit,  hitting  savagely  himself,  but  taking 
punishment  like  a  man.  He  knows  and  never  forgets  that 
people  talk,  first  of  all,  for  the  sake  of  talking;  conducts 
himself  in  the  ring,  to  use  the  old  slang,  like  a  thorough  s 
"  glutton,"  and  honestly  enjoys  a  telling  facer  from  his 
adversary.  Cockshot  is  bottled  effervescency,  the  sworn 
foe  of  sleep.  Three-in-the-morning  Cockshot,  says  a  victim. 
His  talk  is  like  the  driest  of  all  imaginable  dry  champagnes. 
Sleight  of  hand  and  inimitable  quickness  are  the  qualities  lo 
by  which  he  lives.  Athelred,  on  the  other  hand,  presents 
you  with  the  spectacle  of  a  sincere  and  somewhat  slow  nature 
thinking  aloud.  He  is  the  most  unready  man  I  ever  knew 
to  shine  in  conversation.  You  may  see  him  sometimes 
wrestle  with  a  refractory  jest  for  a  minute  or  two  together,  15 
and  perhaps  fail  to  throw  it  in  the  end.  And  there  is  some- 
thing singularly  engaging,  often  instructive,  in  the  simplic- 
ity with  which  he  thus  exposes  the  process  as  well  as  the 
result,  the  works  as  well  as  the  dial  of  the  clock.  Withal 
he  has  his  hours  of  inspiration.  Apt  words  come  to  him  20 
as  if  by  accident,  and,  coming  from  deeper  down,  they  smack 
the  more  personally,  they  have  the  more  of  fine  old  crusted 
humanity,  rich  in  sediment  and  humour.  There  are  sayings 
of  his  in  which  he  has  stamped  himself  into  the  very  grain 
of  the  language;  you  would  think  he  must  have  worn  the  25 
words  next  his  skin  and  slept  with  them.  Yet  it  is  not  as  a 
sayer  of  particular  good  things  that  Athelred  is  most  to  be 
regarded,  rather  as  the  stalwart  woodman  of  thought.  I 
have  pulled  on  a  light  cord  often  enough,  while  he  has  been 
wielding  the  broad-axe;  and  between  us,  on  this  unequal 30 
division,  many  a  specious  fallacy  has  fallen.  I  have  known 
him  to  battle  the  same  question  night  after  night  for  years, 
keeping  it  in  the  reign  of  talk,  constantly  applying  it  and 
re-applying  it  to  life  with  humorous  or  grave  intention, 
and  all  the  while,  never  hurrying,  nor  flagging,  nor  taking  35 
an  unfair  advantage  of  the  facts.  Jack  at  a  given  moment, 
when  arising,   as  it   were,   from   the   tripod,   can   be   more 


194  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

radiantly  just  to  those  from  whom  hexliffers;  but  then  the 
tenor  of  his  thoughts  is  even  calumnious;  while  Athelred, 
slower  to  forge  excuses,  is  yet  slower  to  condemn,  and  sits 
over  the  welter  of  the  world,  vacillating  but  still  judicial, 
5  and  still  faithfully  contending  with  his  doubts. 

Both  the  last  talkers  deal  much  in  points  of  conduct  and 
religion  studied  in  the  "  dry  light  "  of  prose.  Indirectly 
and  as  if  against  his  will  the  same  elements  from  time  to 
time  appear  in  the  troubled  and  poetic  talk  of  Opalstein. 

lo  His  various  and  exotic  knowledge,  complete  although 
unready  sympathies,  and  fine,  full,  discriminative  flow  of 
language,  fit  him  out  to  be  the  best  of  talkers;  so  perhaps 
he  is  with  some,  not  quite  with  me — proxime  accessit,^  I 
should  say.     He  sings  the  praises  of  the  earth  and  the  arts, 

15  flowers  and  jewels,  wine  and  music,  in  a  moonlight,  seren- 
ading manner,  as  to  the  light  guitar;  even  wisdom  comes 
from  his  tongue  like  singing;  no  one  is,  indeed,  more  tune- 
ful in  the  upper  notes.  But  even  while  he  sings  the  song 
of  the  Sirens,  he  still  hearkens  to  the  barking  of  the  Sphinx. 

20  Jarring  Byronic  notes  interrupt  the  flow  of  his  Horatian 
humours.  His  mirth  has  something  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
world  for  its  perpetual  background;  and  he  feasts  like  Don 
Giovanni  to  a  double  orchestra,  one  Hghtly  sounding  for 
the  dance,  one  pealing  Beethoven  in  the  distance.     He  is 

25  not  truly  reconciled  either  with  life  or  with  himself;  and 
this  instant  war  in  his  members  sometimes  divides  the  man's 
attention.  He  does  not  always,  perhaps  not  often,  frankly 
surrender  himself  in  conversation.  He  brings  into  the 
talk  other  thoughts  than  those  which  he  expresses;    you 

30  are  conscious  that  he  keeps  an  eye  on  something  else,  that 
he  does  not  shake  off  the  world,  nor  quite  forget  himself. 
Hence  arise  occasional  disappointments;  even  an  occasional 
unfairness  for  his  companions,  who  find  themselves  one  day 
giving  too  much,  and  the  next,  when  they  are  wary  out  of 

35  season,    giving   perhaps    too    little.     Purcel    is    in    another 
class  from  any  I  have  mentioned.     He  is  no  debater,  but 
1  Proxime  accessit:  he  comes  very  close  to  it. 


TALK  AND  TALKERS  195 

appears  in  conversation,  as  occasion  rises,  in  two  distinct 
characters,  one  of  which  I  admire  and  fear,  and  the  other 
love.  In  the  first,  he  is  radiantly  civil  and  rather  silent, 
sits  on  a  high,  courtly  hilltop,  and  from  that  vantage-ground 
drops  you  his  remarks  like  favours.  He  seems  not  to  share  5 
in  our  sublunary  contentions;  he  wears  no  sign  of  interest; 
when  on  a  sudden  there  falls  in  a  crystal  of  wit,  so  poUshed 
that  the  dull  do  not  perceive  it,  but  so  right  that  the  sen- 
sitive are  silenced.  True  talk  should  have  more  body  and 
blood,  should  be  louder,  vainer  and  more  declaratory  of  the  ro 
man;  the  true  talker  should  not  hold  so  steady  an  advan- 
tage over  whom  he  speaks  with;  and  that  is  one  reason 
out  of  a  score  why  I  prefer  my  Purcel  in  his  second  char- 
acter, when  he  unbends  into  a  strain  of  graceful  gossip, 
singing  like  the  fireside  kettle.  In  these  moods  he  has  15 
an  elegant  homeliness  that  rings  of  the  true  Queen  Anne. 
I  know  another  person  who  attains,  in  his  moments,  to  the 
insolence  of  a  Restoration  comedy,  speaking,  I  declare,  as 
Congreve  wrote;  but  that  is  a  sport  of  nature,  and  scarce 
falls  under  the  rubric,  for  there  is  none,  alas!  to  give  him  20 
answer. 

One  last  remark  occurs:  It  is  the  mark  of  genuine  con- 
versation that  the  sayings  can  scarce  be  quoted  with  their 
full  efTect  beyond  the  circle  of  common  friends.  To  have 
their  proper  weight  they  should  appear  in  a  biography,  and  25 
with  the  portrait  of  the  speaker.  Good  talk  is  dramatic; 
it  is  like  an  impromptu  piece  of  acting  where  each  should 
represent  himself  to  the  greatest  advantage;  and  that  is  the 
best  kind  of  talk  where  each  speaker  is  most  fully  and 
candidly  himself,  and  where,  if  you  were  to  shift  the  speeches  30 
round  from  one  to  another,  there  would  be  the  greatest 
loss  in  significance  and  perspicuity.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  talk  depends  so  wholly  on  our  company.  We  should 
like  to  introduce  Falstaff  and  Mercutio,  or  FalstafT  and  Sir 
Toby;  but  Falstaff  in  talk  with  Cordelia  seems  even  pain- 35 
ful.  Most  of  us,  by  the  Protean  quality  of  man,  can  talk 
to  some  degree  with  all;   but  the  tiue  talk,  that  strikes  out 


196  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

all  the  slumbering  best  of  us,  cbmes  only  with  the 
peculiar  brethren  of  our  spirits,  is  founded  as  deep  as 
love  in  the  constitution  of  our  being,  and  is  a  thing  to 
relish  with  all  our  energy,  while  yet  we  have  it,  and  to 
5  be  grateful  for  forever. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED  i 

William  James 

Of  what  use  is  a  college  training?  We  who  have  had  it 
seldom  hear  the  question  raised — we  might  be  a  little  non- 
plussed to  answer  it  offhand.  A  certain  amount  of  medita- 
tion has  brought  me  to  this  as  the  pithiest  reply  which  I  , 
myself  can  give:  The  best  claim  that  a  college  education 
can  possibly  make  on  your  respect,  the  best  thing  it  can 
aspire  to  accomplish  for  you,  is  this:  that  it  should  help 
you  to  know  a  good  man  when  you  see  him.  This  is  as  true 
of  women's  as  of  men's  colleges;  but  that  it  is  neither  ^^ 
a  joke  nor  a  one-sided  abstraction  I  shall  now  endeavor  to 
show. 

What   talk   do   we   commonly   hear  about   the   contrast 
between  college  education  and  the  education  which  business 
or   technical   or   professional   schools   confer?    The   college  j. 
education  is  called  higher  because  it  is  supposed  to  be  so 
general  and  so  disinterested.     At  the  "  schools  "  you  get 
a  relatively  narrow  practical  skill,  you  are  told,  whereas  the 
"  colleges  ''  give  you  the  more  liberal  culture,  the  broader 
outlook,  the  historical  perspective,  the  philosophic  atmos-  ^^ 
phere,  or  something  which  phrases  of  that  sort  try  to  express. 
You  are  made  into  an  efficient  instrument  for  doing  a  deli- 
nite  thing,  you  hear,  at  the  schools;    but,  apart  from    that, 
you  may  remain  a  crude  and  smoky  kind  of  petroleum, 
incapable  of  spreacHng  light.     The  universities  and  colleges,  ,. 
on  the  other  hand,  although  they  may  leave  you  less  efficient 

^  First  published  in   iqoS.     Rcijrinlcd  by  permission  from  Memories 
a>id  Sliidics.  loii.      (Messrs.  Longmans,  Green  and  Co.) 

197 


Ids  WILLIAM  JAMES 

for  this  or  that  practical  task,  suffuse  your  whole  mentality 
with  something  more  important  than  skill.  They  redeem  you, 
make  you  well-bred;  they  make  "  good  company  "  of  you 
mentally.     If  they  find  you  with  a  naturally  boorish  or 

5  caddish  mind,  they  cannot  leave  you  so,  as  a  technical 
school  may  leave  you.  This,  at  least,  is  pretended;  this  is 
what  we  hear  among  college-trained  people  when  they  com- 
pare their  education  with  every  other  sort.  Now,  exactly 
how  much  does  this  signify? 

lo  It  is  certain,  to  begin  with,  that  the  narrowest  trade 
or  professional  training  does  something  more  for  a  man  than 
to  make  a  skillful  practical  tool  of  him — it  makes  him  also 
a  judge  of  other  men's  skill.  Whether  his  trade  be  pleading 
at  the  bar  or  surgery  or  plastering  or  plumbing,  it  develops 

15  a  critical  sense  in  him  for  that  sort  of  occupation.  He 
understands  the  difference  between  second-rate  and  first- 
rate  work  in  his  whole  branch  of  industry;  he  gets  to  know 
a  good  job  in  his  own  line  as  soon  as  he  sees  it;  and  getting 
to  know  this  in  his  own  line,  he  gets  a  faint  sense  of  what 

20  good  work  may  mean  anyhow,  that  may,  if  circumstances 
favor,  spread  into  his  judgments  elsewhere.  Sound  work, 
clean  work,  finished  work;  feeble  work,  slack  work,  sham 
work — these  words  express  an  identical  contrast  in  many 
different    departments  of  activity.     In  so  far,  then,  even 

25  the  humblest  manual  trade  may  beget  in  one  a  certain 
small  degree  of  power  to  judge  of  good  work  generally. 

Now,  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  line  of  us  who  have 
the  higher  college  training?  Is  there  any  broader  line — 
since  our  education  claims  primarily  not  to  be  "  narrow  " 

30 — in  which  we  also  are  made  good  judges  between  what 
is  first-rate  and  what  is  second-rate  only?  What  is  especially 
taught  in  the  colleges  has  long  been  known  by  the  name  of 
the  "  humanities,"  and  these  arc  often  identified  with 
Greek  and  Latin.     But  it  is  only  as  literatures,  not  as  lan- 

35  guages,  that  Greek  and  Latin  have  any  general  humanity- 
value;  so  that  in  a  broad  sense  the  humanities  mean  litera- 
ture primarily,  and  in  a  still  broader  sense  the  study  of 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED    l99 

masterpieces  in  almost  any  field  of  human  endeavor.  Litera- 
ture keeps  the  primacy;  for  it  not  only  consists  of  master- 
pieces, but  is  largely  about  masterpieces,  being  little  more 
than  an  appreciative  chronicle  of  human  master-strokes, 
so  far  as  it  takes  the  form  of  criticism  and  history.  You  5 
can  give  humanistic  value  to  almost  anything  by  teaching 
it  historically.  Geology,  economics,  mechanics,  are  human- 
ities when  taught  with  reference  to  the  successive  achieve- 
ments of  the  geniuses  to  which  these  sciences  owe  their 
being.  Not  taught  thus,  literature  remains  grammar,  lo 
art  a  catalogue,  history  a  list  of  dates,  and  natural  science 
a  sheet  of  formulas  and  weights  and  measures. 

The  sifting  of  human  creations  I — nothing  less  than  this 
is  what  we  ought  to  mean  by  the  humanities.  Essentially 
this  means  biography;  what  our  colleges  should  teach  is,  15 
therefore,  biographical  history,  not  that  of  politics  merely, 
but  of  anything  and  everything  so  far  as  human  efforts 
and  conquests  are  factors  that  have  played  their  part. 
Studying  in  this  way,  we  learn  what  types  of  activity  have 
stood  the  test  of  time;  we  acquire  standards  of  the  excellent  20 
and  durable.  All  our  arts  and  sciences  and  institutions  are 
but  so  many  quests  of  perfection  on  the  part  of  men;  and 
when  we  see  how  diverse  the  types  of  excellence  may  be, 
how  various  the  tests,  how  flexible  the  adaptations,  we  gain 
a  richer  sense  of  what  the  terms  "  better  "  and  "  worse  "25 
may  signify  in  general.  Our  critical  sensibilities  grow  both 
more  acute  and  less  fanatical.  We  sympathize  with  men's 
mistakes  even  in  the  act  of  penetrating  them;  we  feel  the 
pathos  of  lost  causes  and  misguided  epochs  even  while  we 
applaud  what  overcame  them,  30 

Such  words  are  vague  and  such  ideas  are  inadequate, 
but  their  meaning  is  unmistakable.  What  the  colleges — 
teaching  humanities  by  examples  which  may  be  special, 
but  which  must  be  typical  and  pregnant — should  at  least 
try  to  give  us,  is  a  general  sense  of  what,  under  various  35 
disguises,  superiority  has  always  signified  and  may  still 
signify.     The  feeling  for  a  good  human  job  anywhere,  the 


200  WILLIAM  JAMES 

\ 
admiration  of  the  really  admirable,  the  disesteem  of  what  is 
cheap  and  trashy  and  impermanent — this  is  what  we  call  the 
critical  sense,  the  sense  for  ideal  values.  It  is  the  better 
part  of  what  men  know  as  wisdom.  Some  of  us  are  wise 
5  in  this  way  naturally  and  by  genius;  some  of  us  never  become 
so.  But  to  have  spent  one's  youth  at  college,  in  contact 
with  the  choice  and  rare  and  precious,  and  yet  still  to  be  a 
blind  prig  or  vulgarian,  unable  to  scent  out  human  excel- 
lence or  to  divine  it  amid  its  accidents,  to  know  it  only  when 

lo  ticketed  and  labeled  and  forced  on  us  by  others,  this  indeed 
should  be  accounted  the  very  calamity  and  shipwreck  of  a 
higher  education. 

The  sense  for  human  superiority  ought,  then,  to  be  con- 
sidered our  line,  as  boring  subways  is  the  engineer's  line  and 

15  the  surgeon's  is  appendicitis.  Our  colleges  ought  to  have 
lit  up  in  us  a  lasting  relish  for  the  better  kind  of  man,  a 
loss  of  appetite  for  mediocrities,  and  a  disgust  for  cheap- 
jacks.  We  ought  to  smell,  as  it  were,  the  difiference  of 
quality  in  men  and  their  proposals  when  we  enter  the  world 

20  of  affairs  about  us.  Expertness  in  this  might  well  atone  for 
some  of  our  awkwardness  at  accounts,  for  some  of  our 
ignorance  of  dynamos.  The  best  claim  we  can  make  for 
the  higher  education,  the  best  single  phrase  in  which  we 
can  tell  what  it  ought  to  do  for  us,  is,  then,  exactly  what  I 

25  said:  it  should  enable  us  to  know  a  good  man  when  we  see  him. 

That  the  phrase  is  anything  but  an  empty  epigram  follows 

from  the  fact  that  if  you  ask  in  what  line  it  is  most  important 

that  a  democracy  like  ours  should  have  its  sons  and  daughters 

skillful,  you  see  that  it  is  this  line  more  than  any  other. 

30  "  The  people  in  their  wisdom  " — this  is  the  kind  of  wisdom 
most  needed  by  the  people.  Democracy  is  on  its  trial, 
and  no  one  knows  how  it  will  stand  the  ordeal.  Abounding 
about  us  are  pessimistic  prophets.  Fickleness  and  vio- 
lence used  to  be,  but  arc  no  longer,  the  vices  which  they 

35  charge  to  democracy.  What  its  critics  now  afhrm  is  that 
its  preferences  are  inveterately  for  the  inferior.  So  it  was 
in  the  beginning,  they  say,  and  so  it  will  be  world  without 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUE   OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED     201 

end.  Vu^arity  enthroned  and  institutionalized,  elbowing 
everything  superior  from  the  highway,  this,  they  tell  us, 
is  our  irremediable  destiny;  and  the  picture  papers  of  the 
European  continent  are  already  drawing  Uncle  Sam  with  the 
hog  instead  of  the  eagle  for  his  heraldic  emblem.  The  5 
privileged  aristocracies  of  the  foretime,  with  all  their  iniqui- 
ties, did  at  least  preserve  some  taste  for  higher  human 
quaUty  and  honor  certain  forms  of  refinement  by  their 
enduring  traditions.  But  when  democracy  is  sovereign,  its 
doubters  say,  nobility  will  form  a  sort  of  invisible  church,  lo 
and  sincerity  and  refinement,  stripped  of  honor,  preced- 
ence, and  favor,  will  have  to  vegetate  on  sufferance  in  pri- 
vate corners.  They  will  have  no  general  influence.  They 
will  be  harmless  eccentricities. 

Now,  who  can  be  absolutely  certain  that  this  may  not  be  15 
the   career  of   democracy?    Nothing  future  is  quite  secure; 
states  enough   have   inwardly  rotted;    and  democracy  as  a 
whole  may  undergo  self-poisoning.     But,  on  the  other  hand, 
democracy  is  a  kind  of  religion,  and  we  are  bound  not  to 
admit  its  failure.     Faiths  and  Utopias  are  the  noblest  exercise  20 
of  human  reason,  and  no  one  with  a  spark  of  reason  in  him 
will   sit   down   fatalistically   before   the   croaker's   picture. 
The  best   of  us  are  filled  with  the  contrary  vision  of  a 
democracy  stumbling  through  every  error  till  its  institutions 
glow  with  justice  and  its  customs  shine  with  beauty.     Our  25 
better  men  shall  show  the  way  and  we  shall  follow  them; 
so  we  are  brought  round  again  to  the  mission  of  the  higher 
education  in  helping  us  to  know  the  better  kind  of  man 
whenever  we  see  him. 

The  notion  that  a  people  can  run  itself  and  its  affairs 30 
anonymously  is  now  well  known  to  be  the  silliest  of  absurd- 
ities. Mankind  does  nothing  save  through  initiatives  on  the 
part  of  inventors,  great  or  small,  and  imitation  by  the  rest 
of  us — these  are  the  sole  factors  active  in  human  progress. 
Individuals  of  genius  show  the  way,  and  set  the  patterns,  35 
which  common  people  then  adopt  and  follow.  The  rivalry 
of  the  patterns  is  the  history  of  the  world.     Our  democratic 


202  WILLIAM  JAMES 

\ 
problem  thus  is  statable  in  ultra-simple  terms:  Who  are  the 
kind  of  men  from  whom  our  majorities  shall  take  their  cue? 
Whom  shall  they  treat  as  rightful  leaders?  We  and  our 
leaders  are  the  x  and  the  y  of  the  equation  here;  all  other 
5  historic  circumstances,  be  they  economical,  political,  or 
intellectual,  are  only  the  background  of  occasion  on  which 
the  living  drama  works  itself  out  between  us. 

In  this  very  simple  way  does  the  value  of  our  educated 
class  define  itself:   we   more  than  others  should  be  able  to 
lo  divine  the  worthier  and  better  leaders.     The  terms  here 
are  monstrously  simplified,  of  course,  but  such  a  bird's-eye 
view  lets  us  immediately  take  our  bearings.   In  our  democracy, 
where  everything  else  is  so  shifting,  we  alumni  and  alumnas 
of  the  colleges  are  the  only  permanent  presence  that  cor- 
15  responds  to  the  aristocracy  in  older  countries.     We  have 
continuous   traditions,   as   they   have;    our  motto,   too,   is 
noblesse  oblige;  and,  unlike  them,  we  stand  for  ideal  interests 
solely,  for  we  have  no  corporate  selfishness  and  wield  no 
powers  of  corruption.     We  ought  to  have  our  own  class- 
2o  consciousness.     "  Les    intellectuelsl"     What    prouder    club 
name  could  there  be  than  this  one,  used  ironically  by  the 
party  of  "  red  blood,"  the  party  of  every  stupid  prejudice 
and  passion,  during  the  anti-Dreyfus  craze,  to  satirize  the 
men  in  France  who  still  retained  some  critical  sense  and 
25  judgment!    Critical  sense,  it  has  to  be  confessed,  is  not  an 
exciting   term,   hardly   a   banner   to   carry   in   processions. 
Affections  for  old  habit,  currents  of  self-interest,  and  gales 
of  passion  are  the  forces  that  keep  the  human  ship  moving; 
and  the  pressure  of  the  judicious  pilot's  hand  upon  the 
30  tiller  is  a  relatively  insignificant  energy.     But  the  affections, 
passions,   and   interests   are   shifting,   successive,   and   dis- 
traught;   they  blow  in  alternation  while  the  pilot's  hand  is 
steadfast.     He  knows  the  compass,  and,  with  all  the  lee- 
ways he  is  obliged  to  tack  toward,  he  always  makes  some 
35  headway.     A  small  force,  if  it  never  lets  up,  will  accumulate 
effects  more  considerable  than  those  of  much  greater  forces 
if  these  work  inconsistently.     The  ceaseless  whisper  of  the 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED     203 

more  permanent  ideals,  the  steady  tug  of  truth  and  justice, 
give  them  but  time,  must  warp  the  world  in  their 
direction. 

This  bird's-eye  view  of  the  general  steering  function  of 
the  college-bred  amid  the  driftings  of  democracy  ought  to  5 
help  us  to  a  wider  vision  of  what  our  colleges  themselves 
should  aim  at.  If  vfc  are  to  be  the  yeast  cake  for  democ- 
racy's dough,  if  we  are  to  make  it  rise  with  culture's  pref- 
erences, we  must  see  to  it  that  culture  spreads  broad  sails. 
We  must  shake  the  old  double  reefs  out  of  the  canvas  into  10 
the  wind  and  sunshine,  and  let  in  every  modern  subject,  sure 
that  any  subject  will  prove  humanistic,  if  its  setting  be  kept 
only  wide  enough. 

Stevenson  says  somewhere  to  his  reader:  "  You  think 
you  are  just  making  this  bargain,  but  you  are  really  laying  15 
down  a  Hnk  in  the  policy  of  mankind."  Well,  your  technical 
school  should  enable  you  to  make  your  bargain  splendidly; 
but  your  college  should  show  you  just  the  place  of  that  kind 
of  bargain— a  pretty  poor  place,  possibly — in  the  whole 
policy  of  mankind.  That  is  the  kind  of  liberal  outlook,  of  20 
perspective,  of  atmosphere,  which  should  surround  every 
subject  as  a  college  deals  with  it. 

We  of  the  colleges  must  eradicate  a  curious  notion  which 
numbers  of  good  people  have  about   such  ancient  seats  of 
learning  as   Harvard.     To   many   ignorant   outsiders,   that  25 
name  suggests  little  more  than  a  kind  of  sterlized  conceit 
and  incapacity  for  being  pleased.     In  Edith  Wyatt's  exquisite 
book  of  Chicago  sketches  called  "  Every  One  his  Own  Way," 
there  is  a  couple  who  stand  for  culture  in  the  sense  of  exclu- 
siveness,  Richard  Elliot  and  his  feminine  counterpart — feeble  30 
caricatures  of  mankind,  unable  to  know  any  good  thing 
when  they  see  it,  incapable  of  enjoyment  unless  a  printed 
label  gives  them  leave.     Possibly  this  type  of  culture  may 
exist  near  Cambridge  and  Boston,  there  may  be  specimens 
there,  for  priggishness  is  just  like  painters'  colic  or  any  other  35 
trade  disease.     But  every  good  college  makes  its  students 
immune  against  this  malad\',  of  which  the  microbe  haunts 


204  WILLIAM  JAMES 

the  neighborhood-printed  pages.  It  ^oes  so  by  its  general 
tone  being  too  hearty  for  the  microbe's  hfe.  Real  culture 
lives  by  sympathies  and  admirations,  not  by  dislikes  and 
disdains — under  all  misleading  wrappings  it  pounces  unerr- 
S  ingly  upon  the  human  core.  If  a  college,  through  the  inferior 
human  influences  that  have  grown  regnant  there,  fails  to 
catch  the  robuster  tone,  its  failure  is  colossal,  for  its  social 
function  stops:  democracy  gives  it  a  wide  berth,  turns 
toward  it  a  deaf  ear. 

lo  ''  Tone,"  to  be  sure,  is  a  terribly  vague  word  to  use,  but 
there  is  no  other,  and  this  whole  meditation  is  over  questions 
of  tone.  By  their  tone  are  all  things  human  either  lost  or 
saved.  If  democracy  is  to  be  saved  it  must  catch  the  higher, 
healthier  tone.     If  we  are  to  impress  it  with  our  preferences, 

15  we  ourselves  must  use  the  proper  tone,  which  we,  in  turn, 
must  have  caught  from  our  own  teachers.  It  all  reverts  in 
the  end  to  the  action  of  innumerable  imitative  individuals 
upon  each  other  and  to  the  question  of  whose  tone  has  the 
highest  spreading  power.     As  a  class,  we  college  graduates 

20  should  look  to  it  that  ours  has  spreading  power.  It  ought 
to  have  the  highest  spreading  power. 

In  our  essential  function  of  indicating  the  better  men, 
we  now  have  formidable  competitors  outside.  McClure's 
Magazine,  the  American  Magazine,  Collier's  Weekly,  and, 

25  in  its  fashion,  the  World's  Work,  constitute  together  a  real 
popular  university  along  this  very  line.  It  would  be  a  pity 
if  any  future  historian  were  to  have  to  write  words  like 
these:  "  By  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  century  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning  had  lost  all  influence  over  public 

30  opinion  in  the  United  States.  But  the  mission  of  raising  the 
tone  of  democracy,  which  they  had  proved  themselves  so 
lamentably  unfitted  to  exert,  was  assumed  with  rare  enthu- 
siasm and  prosecuted  with  extraordinary  skill  and  success 
by  a  new  educational  power;    and  for  the  clarification  of 

35  their  human  sympathies  and  elevation  of  their  human  pref- 
erences, the  people  at  large  acquired  the  habit  of  resorting 
exclusively    to    the    guidance    of    certain    private    literary 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED     205 

adventures,   commonly  designated  in   the   market   by   the 
affectionate  name  of  ten-cent  magazines." 

Must  not  we  of  the  colleges  see  to  it  that  no  historian  shall 
ever  say  anything  like  this?  Vague  as  the  phrase  of  knowing 
a  good  man  when  you  see  him  may  be,  diffuse  and  indefinite  5 
as  one  must  leave  its  application,  is  there  any  other  formula 
that  describes  so  well  the  result  at  which  our  institutions 
ought  to  aim?   If  they  do  that,  they  do  the  best  thing  con- 
ceivable.    If  they  fail  to  do  it,  they  fail  in  very  deed.     It 
surely  is  a  fine  synthetic  formula.     If  our  faculties  andio 
graduates  could  once  collectively  come  to  realize  it  as  the 
great  underlying  purpose  toward  which  they  have  always 
been  more  or  less  obscurely  groping,  great  clearness  would 
be  shed  over  many  of  their  problems;    and,  as  for  their 
influence  in  the  midst  of  our  social  system,  it  would  embark  iS 
upon  a  new  career  of  strength. 


\ 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  i 

Henry  George 

What,  then,  is  the  law  of  human  progress — the  law 
under  which  civilization  advances? 

It  must  explain  clearly  and  definitely,  and  not  by  v^ague 
generalities  or  superficial  analogies,  why,  though  mankind 
started  presumably  with  the  same  capacities  and  at  the  5 
same  time,  there  now  exist  such  wide  differences  in  social 
development.  It  must  account  for  the  arrested  civiliza- 
tions and  for  the  decayed  and  destroyed  civilizations;  for 
the  general  facts  as  to  the  rise  of  civilization,  and  for  the 
petrifying  or  enervating  force  which  the  progress  of  civiliza- 10 
tion  has  heretofore  always  evolved.  It  must  account  for 
retrogression  a  well  as  for  progression;  for  the  differences 
in  general  character  between  Asiatic  and  European  civiliza- 
tions; for  the  difference  between  classical  and  modern 
civilizations;  for  the  different  rates  at  which  progress  goes  15 
on;  and  for  those  bursts,  and  starts,  and  halts  of  progress 
which  are  so  marked  as  minor  phenomena.  And,  thus, 
it  must  show  us  what  are  the  essential  conditions  of  progress, 
and  what  social  adjustments  advance  and  what  retard  it. 

It  is  not  difl&cult  to  discover  such  a  law.     We  have  but  20 
to    look  and  we  may  see  it.     I  do  not  pretend  to  give  it 
scientific  precision,  but  merely  to  point  it  out. 

The  incentives  to  progress  are  the  desires  inherent  in 
human   nature — the   desire   to   gratify   the   wants   of    the 

^  Chapter  III,  Book  X,  of  "  Progress  and  Povertj-;  "  copyright, 
IQ07,  by  Henry  George,  Richard  F.  George,  and  Anna  G.  de  Mille. 
The  chapter  is  here  reprinted  by  permission  of  Mr.  Henry  George, 
Junior,  and  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company. 

206 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  207 

animal  nature,  the  wants  of  the  intellectual  nature,  and 
the  wants  of  the  sympathetic  nature;  the  desire  to  be,  to 
know,  and  to  do — desires  that  short  of  infinity  can  never 
be  satisfied,  as  they  grow  by  what  they  feed  on. 

Mind  is  the  instrument  by  which  man  adv^ances,  and  by  5 
which  each  advance  is  secured  and  made  the  vantage  ground 
for  new  advances.     Though  he  may  not  by  taking  thought 
add  a  cubit  to  his  stature,  man  may  by  taking  thought 
extend  his  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  his  power  over  it, 
in  what,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  is  an  infinite  degree.     The  lo 
narrow  span  of  human  life  allows  the  individual  to  go  but 
a  short  distance,  but  though  each  generation  may  do  but 
little,  yet  generations,  succeeding  to  the  gain  of  their  pred- 
ecessors,   may  gradually  elevate    the  status  of    mankind, 
as  coral  polyps,  building  one  generation  upon  the  work  ofi5 
the  other,  gradually  elevate  themselves  from  the  bottom 
of  the  sea. 

Mental  power  is,   therefore,  the  motor  of  progress,   and 
men  tend  to  advance  in  proportion  to  the  mental  power 
expended  in  progression — the  mental  power  which  is  devoted  20 
to  the  extension  of  knowledge,  the  improvement  of  methods, 
and  the  betterment  of  social  conditions. 

Now  mental  power  is  a  fixed  quantity — that  is  to  say, 
there  is  a  Hmit  to  the  work  a  man  can  do  with  his  mind,  as 
there  is  to  the  work  he  can  do  with  his  body;  therefore,  25 
the  mental  power  which  can  be  devoted  to  progress  is  only 
what  is  left  after  what  is  required  for  non-progressive 
purposes. 

These  non-progressive  purposes  in  which  mental  power 
is  consumed  may  be  classified  as  maintenance  and  con- 3° 
flict.  By  maintenance  I  mean,  not  only  the  support  of 
existence,  but  the  keeping  up  of  the  social  condition  and 
the  holding  of  advances  already  gained.  By  conflict  I 
mean  not  merely  warfare  and  preparation  for  warfare, 
but  all  expenditure  of  mental  power  in  seeking  the  grati-35 
fication  of  desire  at  the  expense  of  others,  and  in  resistance 
to  such  aggression. 


208  HENRY  GEORGE 

\ 
To  compare  society  to  a  boat.  Her  progress  through 
the  water  will  not  depend  upon  the  exertion  of  her  crew, 
but  upon  the  exertion  devoted  to  propelling  her.  This 
will  be  lessened  by  any  expenditure  of  force  required  for 
5  bailing,  or  any  expenditure  of  force  in  fighting  among  them- 
selves, or  in  pulling  in  different  directions. 

Now,  as  in  a  separated  state  the  whole  powers  of  man 
are  required  to  maintain  existence,  and  mental  power  is 
set  free  for  higher  uses  only  by  the  association  of  men  in 

lo  communities,  which  permits  the  division  of  labor  and 
all  the  economies  which  come  with  the  co-operation  of 
increased  numbers,  association  is  the  first  essential  of 
progress.  Improvement  becomes  possible  as  men  come 
together  in  peaceful  association,  and  the  wider  and  closer 

IS  the  association,  the  greater  the  possibilities  of  improve- 
ment. And  as  the  wasteful  expenditure  of  mental  power 
in  conflict  becomes  greater  or  less  as  the  moral  law  which 
accords  to  each  an  equality  of  rights  is  ignored  or  is  recog- 
nized, equality  (or  justice)  is  the  second  essential  of  progress. 

20  Thus  association  in  equality  is  the  law  of  progress.  Asso- 
ciation frees  mental  power  for  expenditure  in  improvement, 
and  equality,  or  justice,  or  freedom — for  the  terms  here 
signify  the  same  thing,  the  recognition  of  the  moral  law 
— prevents  the  dissipation  of  this  power  in  fruitless  struggles. 

25  Here  is  the  law  of  progress,  which  will  explain  all  diver- 
sities, all  advances,  all  halts,  and  retrogressions.  Men  tend 
to  progress  just  as  they  come  closer  together,  and  by  co- 
operation with  each  other  increase  the  mental  power  that  may 
be  devoted  to  improvement;   but  just  as  conflict   is  pro- 

3ovoked,  or  association  develops  inequality  of  condition  and 
power,  this  tendency  to  progression  is  lessened,  checked, 
and  finally  reversed. 

Given  the  same  innate  capacity,  and  it  is  evident  that 
social  development  will  go  on  faster  or  slower,  will  stop 

35  or  turn  back,  according  to  the  resistances  it  meets.  In 
a  general  way  these  obstacles  to  improvement  may,  in 
relation  to   the  society   itself,  be  classed  as  external  and 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  209 

internal — the  first  operating  with  greater  force  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  civilization,  the  latter  becoming  more  important 
in  the  later  stages. 

Man  is  social  in  his  nature.  He  does  not  require  to  be 
caught  and  tamed  in  order  to  induce  him  to  live  with  his  5 
fellows.  The  utter  helplessness  with  which  he  enters  the 
world,  and  the  long  period  required  for  the  maturity  of  his 
powers,  necessitate  the  family  relation;  which,  as  we  may 
observe,  is  wider,  and  in  its  extensions  stronger,  among 
the  ruder  than  among  the  more  cultivated  peoples.  The  10 
first  societies  are  famiUes,  expanding  into  tribes,  still  holding 
a  mutual  blood  relationship,  and  even  when  they  have  be- 
come great  nations  claiming  a  common  descent. 

Given  beings  of  this  kind,  placed  on  a  globe  of  such 
diversified  surface  and  cHmate  as  this,  and  it  is  evident  15 
that,  even  with  equal  capacity,  and  an  equal  start,  social 
development  must  be  very   different.     The  first  limit   or 
resistance  to  association  will  come  from  the  conditions  of 
physical  nature,  and  as  these  greatly  vary  with  locality, 
corresponding    differences    in    social    progress    must    show  20 
themselves.     The  net  rapidity  of  increase,  and  the  closeness 
with  which  men,  as  they  increase,  can  keep  together,  will, 
in  the  rude  state  of  knowledge  in  which  reliance  for  sub- 
sistence must  be  principally  upon  the  spontaneous  offerings 
of   nature,    very   largely   depend    upon    climate,    soil,    and  25 
physical  conformation.     Where  much  animal  food  and  warm 
clothing  are   required;    where   the   earth   seems   poor  and 
niggard;   where  the  exuberant  life  of  tropical  forests  mocks 
barbarous  man's  puny  efforts  to  control;   where  mountains, 
deserts,  or  arms  of  the  sea  separate  and  isolate  men;    asso-30 
ciation,  and  the  power  of  impro\'ement  which  it  evolves, 
can  at  first  go  but  a  little  way.     But  on  the  rich  plains  of 
warm  climates,  where  human  existence  can  be  maintained 
with  a  smaller  expenditure  of  force,  and  from  a  much  smaller 
area,  men  can  keep  closer  together,  and  the  mental  power 35 
which   can   at   first    be   de\-oted    to   improvement   is   much 
greater.     Hence    cix'ilizatioa    naturally    first    arises    in    the 


210  HENRY  GEORGE 

great  valleys  and  table-lands  where  we  find  its  earliest 
monuments. 

But  these  diversities  in  natural  conditions,  not  merely 
thus  directly  produce  diversities  in  social  development, 
5  but,  by  producing  diversities  in  social  development,  bring 
out  in  man  himself  an  obstacle,  or  rather  an  active  coun- 
terforce,  to  improvement.  As  families  and  tribes  are 
separated  from  each  other,  the  social  feeling  ceases  to  operate 
between  them,  and  differences    arise  in  language,  custom, 

lo  tradition,  rehgion — in  short,  in  the  whole  social  web  which 
each  community,  however  small  or  large,  constantly  spins. 
With  these  dififerences,  prejudices  grow,  animosities  spring 
up,  contact  easily  produces  quarrels,  aggression  begets 
aggression,  and  wrong  kindles  revenge.^     And  so  between 

15  these  separate  social  aggregates  arises  the  feeling  of  Ishmael 
and  the  spirit  of  Cain,  warfare  becomes  the  chronic  and 
seemingly  natural  relation  of  societies  to  each  other,  and 
the  powers  of  men  are  expended  in  attack  or  defense,  in 
mutual  slaughter  and  mutual  destruction  of  wealth,  or  in 

20  warlike  preparations.  How  long  this  hostility  persists, 
the  protective  tariffs  and  the  standing  armies  of  the  civilized 
world  to-day  bear  witness;  how  difficult  it  is  to  get  over 
the  idea  that  it  is  not  theft  to  steal  from  a  foreigner,  the 
difficulty  in  procuring  an  international  copyright  act  will 

'  How  easy  it  is  for  ignorance  to  pass  into  contempt  and  dislike; 
how  natural  it  is  for  us  to  consider  any  difference  in  manners,  cus- 
toms, religion,  etc.,  as  proof  of  the  inferiority  of  those  who  difTer  from 
us,  any  one  who  has  emancipated  himself  in  any  degree  from  prejudice, 
and  who  mixes  with  different  classes,  may  see  in  civilized  society.  In 
religion,  for  instance,  the  spirit  of  the  hymn — 

"  I'd  rather  be  a  Baptist,  and  wear  a  shining  face, 
Than  for  to  be  a  Methodist  and  always  fall  from  grace," 

is  observable  in  all  denominations.  As  the  English  Bishop  said, 
"  Orthodoxy  is  my  doxy,  and  heterodoxy  is  any  other  doxy,"  while 
the  universal  tendency  is  to  classify  all  outside  of  the  orthodoxies  and 
heterodoxies  of  the  prevailing  religion  as  heathens  or  atheists.  And 
the  like  tendency  is  observable  as  to  all  other  differences. — .\uthor's 
note. 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  211 

show.  Can  we  wonder  at  the  perpetual  hostilities  of  tribes 
and  clans?  Can  we  wonder  that  when  each  community 
was  isolated  from  the  others — when  each,  uninfluenced 
by  the  others,  was  spinning  its  separate  web  of  social  environ- 
ment, which  no  individual  can  escape,  that  war  should  have  5 
been  the  rule  and  peace  the  exception?  "  They  were  even 
as  we  are." 

Now,  warfare  is  the  negation  of  association.     The  separa- 
tion of  men  into  diverse  tribes,  by  increasing  warfare,  thus 
checks  improvement;    while  in  the  localities  where  a  large lo 
increase  in  numbers  is  possible  without  much  separation, 
civilization  gains  the  advantage  of  exemption  from  tribal 
war,  even  when  the  community  as  a  whole  is  carrying  on 
warfare  beyond  its  borders.     Thus,   where   the  resistance 
of  nature  to  the  close  association  of  men  is  slightest,  the  15 
counterforce  of  warfare  is  likely  at  first  to  be  least  felt; 
and  in  the  rich  plains  where  civilization  first  begins,  it  may 
rise  to  a  great  height  while  scattered  tribes  are  yet  bar- 
barous.    And    thus,    when    small,    separated    communities 
exist  in  a  state  of  chronic  warfare  which  forbids  advance,  20 
the  first  step  to  their  civilization  is  the  advent  of  some 
conquering  tribe  or  nation  that  unites  these  smaller  com- 
munities into  a  larger  one,  in  which  internal  peace  is  pre- 
served.    Where  this  power  of  peaceable  association  is  broken 
up,  either  by  external  assaults  or  internal  dissensions,  the  25 
advance  ceases  and  retrogression  begins. 

But  it  is  not  conquest  alone  that  has  operated  to  pro- 
mote association,  and,  by  liberating  mental  power  from 
the  necessities  of  warfare,  to  promote  civilization.  If 
the  diversities  of  climate,  soil,  and  configuration  of  the  30 
earth's  surface  operate  at  first  to  separate  mankind,  they 
also  operate  to  encourage  exchange.  And  commerce, 
which  is  in  itself  a  form  of  association  or  co-operation, 
operates  to  promote  civilization,  not  only  directly,  but 
by  building  up  interests  which  are  opposed  to  warfare,  35 
and  dispelling  the  ignorance  which  is  the  fertile  mother 
of  prejudices  and  animosities. 


212  ^  HENRY  GEORGE 

\ 
And  so  of  religion.  Though  the  forms  it  has  assumed 
and  the  animosities  it  has  aroused  have  often  sundered 
men  and  produced  warfare,  yet  it  has  at  other  times  been 
the  means  of  promoting  association.  A  common  worship 
S  has  often,  as  among  the  Greeks,  mitigated  war  and  furnished 
the  basis  of  union,  while  it  is  from  the  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity over  the  barbarians  of  Europe  that  modern  civiliza- 
tion springs.  Had  not  the  Christian  Church  existed  when 
the  Roman  Empire  went  to  pieces,  Europe,  destitute  of 

loany  bond  of  association,  might  have  fallen  to  a  condition 
not  much  above  that  of  the  North  American  Indians  or 
only  received  civilization  with  an  Asiatic  impress  from  the 
conquering  scimiters  of  the  invading  hordes  which  had 
been  welded  into  a  mighty  power  by  a  religion  which,  spring- 

15  ing  up  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  had  united  tribes  separated 

from  time  immemorial,  and,  thence  issuing,  brought  into  the 

association  of  a  common  faith  a  great  part  of  the  human  race. 

Looking  over  what  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  world, 

we   thus   see   civilization   everywhere   springing   up   where 

20  men  are  brought  into  association,  and  everywhere  disap- 
pearing as  this  association  is  broken  up.  Thus  the  Roman 
civilization,  spread  over  Europe  by  the  conquests  which 
insured  internal  peace,  was  overwhelmed  by  the  incursions 
of  the  northern  nations  that  broke  society  again  into  dis- 

25  connected  fragments;  and  the  progress  that  now  goes  on 
in  our  modern  civilization  began  as  the  feudal  system  again 
began  to  associate  men  in  larger  communities,  and  the 
spiritual  supremacy  of  Rome  to  bring  these  communities 
into  a  common  relation,  as  her  legions  had  done  before.     As 

30  the  feudal  bonds  grew  into  national  autonomies,  and  Chris- 
tianity worked  the  amelioration  of  manners,  brought  forth 
the  knowledge  that  during  the  dark  days  she  had  hidden, 
bound  the  threads  of  peaceful  union  in  her  all-pervading 
organization,  and  taught  association  in  her  religious  orders, 

35  a  greater  progress  became  possible,  which,  as  men  have  been 
brought  into  closer  and  closer  association  and  co-operation, 
has  gone  on  with  greater  and  greater  force. 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  213 

But  we  shall  never  understand  the  course  of  civilization, 
and  the  varied  phenomena  which  its  history  presents, 
without  a  consideration  of  what  I  may  term  the  internal 
resistances,  or  counter  forces,  which  arise  in  the  heart  of 
advancing  society,  and  which  can  alone  explain  how  a  s 
civilization  once  fairly  started  should  either  come  of  itself 
to  a  halt  or  be  destroyed  by  barbarians. 

The  mental  power,  which  is  the  motor  of  social  progress, 
is  set  free  by  association,  which  is, — what,  perhaps,  it  may 
be  more  properly  called, — an  integration.     Society  in  thisio 
process  becomes  more  complex;   its  individuals  more  depen- 
dent   upon    each    other.     Occupations    and    functions    are 
specialized.     Instead    of    wandering,    population    becomes 
fixed.     Instead  of  each  man  attempting  to  supply  all  of 
his  wants,  the  various  trades  and  industries  are  separated—  t5 
one  man  acquires  skill  in  one  thing,  and  another  in  another 
thing.     So,  too,  of  knowledge,  the  body  of  which  constantly 
tends  to  become  vaster  than  one  man  can  grasp,  and  is 
separated  into  different  parts,  which  different  individuals 
acquire  and  pursue.     So,  too,  the  performance  of  religious  20 
ceremonies  tends  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  a  body  of  men 
specially   devoted   to   that  purpose,   and   the  preservation 
of  order,  the  administration  .of  justice,  the  assignment  of 
public  duties  and  the  distribution  of  awards,  the  conduct 
of  war,  etc.,  to  be  made  the  special  functions  of  an  organized  25 
government.     In  short,  to  use  the  language  in  which  Herbert 
Spencer  has  defined  evolution,  the  development  of  society 
is,  in  relation  to  its  component  individuals,  the  passing  from 
an  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity  to  a  definite,  coherent 
heterogeneity.     The  lower  the  stage  of  social  development,  30 
the  more  society  resembles  one  of  those  lowest  of  animal 
organisms  which  are  without  organs  or  limbs,   and  from 
which  a  part  may  be  cut  and  yet  live.     The  higher  the  stage 
of  social   development,   the   more   society   resembles  those 
higher  organisms  in  which  functions  and  powers  are  spe-35 
cialized,  and  each  member  is  vitally  dependent  on  the  others. 

Now,   this  process   of  integration,   of   the   specialization 


214  HENRY  GEORGE 

of  functions  and  powers,  as  it  goes  on  in  society,  is,  by- 
virtue  of  what  is  probably  one  of  the  deepest  laws  of 
human  nature,  accompanied  by  a  constant  liability  to 
inequality.  I  do  not  mean  that  inequality  is  the  necessary 
5  result  of  social  growth,  but  that  it  is  the  constant  tendency 
of  social  growth  if  unaccompanied  by  changes  in  social 
adjustments,  which,  in  the  new  conditions  that  growth 
produces,  will  secure  equality.  I  mean,  so  to  speak,  that 
the  garment  of  laws,   customs,   and  political  institutions, 

lo  which  each  society  weaves  for  itself,,  is  constantly  tending 
to  become  too  tight  as  the  society  develops.  I  mean,  so  to 
speak,  that  man,  as  he  advances,  threads  a  labyrinth,  in 
which,  if  he  keeps  straight  ahead,  he  will  infallibly  lose  his 
way,  and  through  which  reason  and  justice  can  alone  keep 

15  him  continuously  in  an  ascending  path. 

For,  while  the  integration  which  accompanies  growth 
tends  in  itself  to  set  free  mental  power  to  work  improve- 
ment, there  is,  both  with  increase  of  numbers  and  with 
increase  in  complexity  of  the  social  organization,  a  counter 

20  tendency  set  up  to  the  production  of  a  state  of  inequality, 
which  wastes  mental  power,  and,  as  it  increases,  brings 
improvement  to  a  halt. 

To  trace  to  its  highest  expression  the  law  which  thus 
operates   to   evolve   with   progress   the   force   which   stops 

25  progress,  would  be,  it  seems  to  me,  to  go  far  to  the  solu- 
tion of  a  problem  deeper  than  that  of  the  genesis  of  the 
material  universe — the  problem  of  the  genesis  of  evil.  Let 
me  content  myself  with  pointing  out  the  manner  in  which, 
as   society   develops,    there   arise   tendencies   which   check 

30  development. 

There  are  two  qualities  of  human  nature  which  it  will 
be  well,  however,  to  first  call  to  mind.  The  one  is  the 
power  of  habit — the  tendency  to  continue  to  do  things  in 
the  same  way;    the  other  is  the  possibility  of  mental  and 

35  moral  deterioration.  The  eiTect  of  the  first  in  social  develop- 
ment is  to  continue  habits,  customs,  laws  and  methods, 
long  after  they  have  lost  their  original  usefulness,  and  the 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  215 

effect  of  the  other  is  to  permit  the  growth  of  institutions 
and  modes  of  thought  from  which  the  normal  perceptions 
of  men  instinctively  revolt. 

Now  the  growth  and  development  of  society  not  merely 
tend  to  make  each  more  and  more  dependent  upon  all,  S 
and  to  lessen  the  influence  of  individuals,  even  over  their 
own  conditions,  as  compared  with  the  influence  of  society; 
but  the  effect  of  association  or  integration  is  to  give  rise 
to  a  collective  power  which  is  distinguishable  from  the  sum 
of  individual  powers.  Analogies,  or,  perhaps,  rather  illustra- 1° 
tions  of  the  same  law,  may  be  found  in  all  directions.  As 
animal  organisms  increase  in  complexity,  there  arise,  above 
the  life  and  power  of  the  parts,  a  Hfe  and  power  of  the 
integrated  whole;  above  the  capability  of  involuntary 
movements,  the  capability  of  voluntary  movements.  The^S 
actions  and  impulses  of  bodies  of  men  are,  as  has  often  been 
observed,  different  from  those  which,  under  the  same  circum- 
stances, would  be  called  forth  in  individuals.  The  fighting 
quaUties  of  a  regiment  may  be  very  different  from  those  of 
the  individual  soldiers.  But  there  is  no  need  of  illustrations.  20 
In  our  inquiries  into  the  nature  and  rise  of  rent,  we  traced 
the  very  thing  to  which  I  allude.  Where  population  is 
sparse,  land  has  no  value;  just  as  men  congregate  together, 
the  value  of  land  appears  and  rises — a  clearly  distinguishable 
thing  from  the  values  produced  by  individual  eft'ort;  a  25 
value  which  springs  from  association,  which  increases  as 
association  grows  greater,  and  disappears  as  association  is 
broken  up.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  power  in  other 
forms  than  those  generally  expressed  in  terms  of  wealth. 

Now,  as  society  grows,  the  disposition  to  continue  previous  30 
social  adjustments  tends  to  lodge  this  collective  power, 
as  it  arises,  in  the  hands  of  a  portion  of  the  community; 
and  this  unequal  distribution  of  the  wealth  and  power 
gained  as  society  advances  tends  to  produce  greater  inequal- 
ity, since  aggression  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  and  the  idea  35 
of  justice  is  blurred  by  the  habitual  toleration  of  injustice. 

In  this  way  the  patriarchal  organization  of  society  can 


216  HENRY  GEbnGE 

easily  grow  into  hereditary  monarchy,  in  which  the  king 
is  as  a  god  on  earth,  and  the  masses  of  the  people  mere 
slaves  of  his  caprice.  It  is  natural  that  the  father  should 
be  the  directing  head  of  the  family,  and  that  at  his  death 
5  the  eldest  son,  as  the  oldest  and  most  experienced  member 
of  the  little  community,  should  succeed  to  the  headship. 
But  to  continue  this  arrangement  as  the  family  expands,  is 
to  lodge  power  in  a  particular  line,  and  the  power  thus 
lodged  necessarily  continues   to  increase,   as  the  common 

lo  stock  becomes  larger  and  larger,  and  the  power  of  the  com- 
munity grows.  The  head  of  the  family  passes  into  the  hered- 
itary king,  who  comes  to  look  upon  himself  and  to  be  looked 
upon  by  others  as  a  being  of  superior  rights.  With  the 
growth  of  the  collective  power  as  compared  with  the  power 

15  of  the  individual,  his  power  to  reward  and  to  punish  increases, 
and  so  increase  the  inducements  to  flatter  and  to  fear  him; 
until  finally,  if  the  process  be  not  disturbed,  a  nation  grovels 
at  the  foot  of  a  throne,  and  a  hundred  thousand  men  toil 
for  fifty  years  to  prepare  a  tomb  for  one  of  their  own  mortal 

20  kind. 

So  the  war-chief  of  a  little  band  of  savages  is  but  one  of 
their  number,  whom  they  follow  as  their  bravest  and  most 
wary.  But  when  large  bodies  come  to  act  together,  personal 
selection  becomes  more  diflficult,  a  blinder  obedience  becomes 

25  necessary  and  can  be  enforced,  and  from  the  very  necessities 
of  warfare  when  conducted  on  a  large  scale  absolute  power 
arises. 

And  so  of  the  specialization  of  function.  There  is  a 
manifest  gain  in  productive  power  when  social  growth  has 

30  gone  so  far  that  instead  of  every  producer  being  summoned 
from  his  work  for  fighting  purposes,  a  regular  military  force 
can  be  specialized;  but  this  inevitably  tends  to  the  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  military  class  or 
their    chiefs.     The    preservation    of    internal    order,    the 

35  administration  of  justice,  the  construction  and  care  of  public 
works,  and,  notably,  the  observances  of  religion,  all  tend 
in  similar  manner  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  special  classes, 


THE   LAW  OF  HUMAN  TROGRESS  217 

whose  disposition  it  is  to  magnify  their  function  and  extend 
their  power. 

But  the  great  cause  of  inequality  is  in  the  natural  monopoly 
which  is  given  by  the  possession  of  land.  The  first  per- 
ceptions of  men  seem  always  to  be  that  land  is  common  5 
property;  but  the  rude  devices  by  which  this  is  at  first 
recognized — such  as  annual  partitions  or  cultivation  in 
common — are  consistent  with  only  a  low  stage  of  develop- 
ment. The  idea  of  property,  which  naturally  arises  with 
reference  to  things  of  human  production,  is  easily  transferred  lo 
to  land,  and  an  institution  which  when  population  is  sparse 
merely  secures  to  the  improver  and  user  the  due  reward 
of  his  labor,  finally,  as  population  becomes  dense  and  rent 
arises,  operates  to  strip  the  producer  of  his  wages.  Not 
merely  this,  but  the  appropriation  of  rent  for  public  purposes,  is 
which  is  the  only  way  in  which,  with  anything  like  a  high 
development,  land  can  be  readily  retained  as  common  prop- 
erty, becomes,  when  political  and  religious  power  passes  into 
the  hands  of  a  class,  the  ownership  of  the  land  by  that  class, 
and  the  rest  of  the  community  become  merely  tenants.  20 
And  wars  and  conquests,  which  tend  to  the  concentration 
of  political  power  and  to  the  institution  of  slavery,  naturally 
result,  where  social  growth  has  given  land  a  value,  in  the 
appropriation  of  the  soil.  A  dominant  class,  who  con- 
centrate power  in  their  hands,  will  likewise  soon  concentrate  25 
ownership  of  the  land.  To  them  will  fall  large  partitions 
of  conquered  land,  which  the  former  inhabitants  will  till 
as  tenants  or  serfs,  and  the  public  domain,  or  common 
lands,  which  in  the  natural  course  of  social  growth  are  left 
for  a  while  in  every  country,  and  in  which  state  the  primitive  30 
system  of  village  culture  leaves  pasture  and  woodland,  are 
readily  acquired,  as  we  see  by  modern  instances.  'And 
inequality  once  established,  the  ownership  of  land  tends  to 
concentrate  as  development  goes  on. 

I  am  merely  attempting  to  set  forth   the  general  fact  35 
that  as  a  social  development  goes  on,  inequality  tends  to 
establish  itself,  and  not  to  point  out  the  particular  sequence, 


218  HENRY  GEORGE 

which  must  necessarily  vary  with  different  conditions. 
But  this  main  fact  makes  intelUgible  all  the  phenomena 
of  petrifaction  and  retrogression.  The  unequal  distribution 
of  the  power  and  wealth  gained  by  the  integration  of  men  in 
5  society  tends  to  check,  and  finally  to  counterbalance,  the 
force  by  which  improvements  are  made  and  society  advances. 
On  the  one  side,  the  masses  of  the  community  are  compelled 
to  expend  their  mental  powers  in  merely  maintaining 
existence.     On  the  other  side,  mental  power  is  expended  in 

lo  keeping  up  and  intensifying  the  system  of  inequality,  in 
ostentation,  luxury,  and  warfare.  A  community  divided 
into  a  class  that  rules  and  a  class  that  is  ruled— into  the 
very  rich  and  the  very  poor — may  "  build  like  giants  and 
finish  like  jewelers;"   but  it  will  be  monuments  of  ruthless 

15  pride  and  barren  vanity,  or  of  a  religion  turned  from  its  office 
of  elevating  man  into  an  instrument  for  keeping  him  down. 
Invention  may  for  a  while  to  some  degree  go  on ;  but  it  will 
be  the  invention  of  refinements  in  luxury,  not  the  inventions 
that  reUeve  toil  and  increase  power.     In  the  arcana  of  temples 

20  or  in  the  chambers  of  court  physicians  knowledge  may  still 
be  sought;  but  it  will  be  hidden  as  a  secret  thing,  or  if  it 
dares  come  out  to  elevate  common  thought  or  brighten 
common  life,  it  will  be  trodden  down  as  a  dangerous  innova- 
tor.    For  as  it  tends  to  lessen  the  mental  power  devoted 

25  to  improvement,  so  does  inequality  tend  to  render  men 
adverse  to  improvement.  How  strong  is  the  disposition  to 
adhere  to  old  methods  among  the  classes  who  are  kept  in 
ignorance  by  being  compelled  to  toil  for  a  mere  existence, 
is  too  well  known  to  require  illustration,  and  on  the  other 

30  hand  the  conservatism  of  the  classes  to  whom  the  existing 
social  adjustment  gives  special  advantages  is  equally  appar- 
ent. This  tendency  to  resist  innovation,  even  though  it  be 
improvement,  is  observable  in  every  special  organization — in 
religion,  in  law,  in  medicine,  in  science,  in  trade  guilds;  and  it 

35  becomes  intense  just  as  the  organization  is  close.  A  close 
corporation  has  always  an  instinctive  dislike  of  innovation 
and  innovators,  which  is  but  the  expression  of  an  instinctive 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN   PROGRESS  210 

fear  that  change  may  tend  to  throw  clown  the  barriers  which 
hedge  it  in  from  the  common  herd,  and  so  rob  it  of  importance 
and  power;  and  it  is  always  disposed  to  guard  carefully  its 
special  knowledge  or  skill. 

It   is   in   this   way   that   petrifaction   succeeds  progress,   s 
The  advance  of  inequality  necessarily  brings  improvement 
to  a  halt,  and  as  it  still  persists  or  provokes  unavaiUng 
reactions,  draws  even  upon  the  mental  power  necessary  for 
maintenance,  and  retrogression  begins. 

These  principles  make  intelligible  the  history  of  civiliza-  lo 
tion. 

In  the  localities  where  climate,  soil,  and  physical  con- 
formation tended  least  to  separate  men  as  they  increased, 
and  where,  accordingly,  the  first  civilizations  grew  up, 
the  internal  resistances  to  progress  would  naturally  develop  15 
in  a  more  regular  and  thorough  manner  than  where  smaller 
communities,  which  in  their  separation  had  developed 
diversities,  were  afterward  brought  together  into  a  closer 
association.  It  is  this,  it  seems  to  me,  which  accounts  for 
the  general  characteristics  of  the  earlier  civilizations  as  20 
compared  with  the  later  civilizations  of  Europe.  Such 
homogeneous  communities,  developing  from  the  first  without 
the  jar  of  conflict  between  different  customs,  laws,  religions, 
etc.,  would  show  a  much  greater  uniformity.  The  con- 
centrating and  conservative  forces  would  all,  so  to  speak,  25 
pull  together.  Rival  chieftains  would  not  counterbalance 
each  other,  nor  diversities  of  belief  hold  the  growth  of  priestly 
influence  in  check.  Political  and  religious  power,  wealth 
and  knowledge,  would  thus  tend  to  concentrate  in  the 
same  centres.  The  same  causes  which  tended  to  produce  30 
the  hereditary  king  and  hereditary  priest  would  tend  to 
produce  the  hereditary  artisan  and  laborer,  and  to  separate 
society  into  castes.  The  power  which  association  sets  'free 
for  progress  would  thus  be  wasted,  and  barriers  to  further 
progress  be  gradually  raised.  The  surplus  energies  of  the  35 
masses  would  be  devoted  to  the  construction  of  temples, 
palaces,    and   pyramids;    to   ministering   to  the  pride   and 


220  HENRY  GEORGE 

pampering  the  luxury  of  their  rulers;  and  should  any  dis- 
disposition  to  improvement  arise  among  the  classes  of  leisure 
it  would  at  once  be  checked  by  the  dread  of  innovation. 
Society  developing  in  this  way  must  at  length  stop  in  a 
S  conservatism  which  permits  no  further  progress. 

How  long  such  a  state  of  complete  petrifaction,  when 
once  reached,  will  continue,  seems  to  depend  upon  external 
causes,  for  the  iron  bonds  of  the  social  environment  which 
grows  up  repress  disintegrating  forces   as  well  as  improve- 

loment.  Such  a  community  can  be  most  easily  conquered, 
for  the  masses  of  the  people  are  trained  to  a  passive  acqui- 
escence in  a  life  of  hopeless  labor.  If  the  conquerors  merely 
take  the  place  of  the  ruling  class,  as  the  Hyksos  did  in  Egypt 
and  the  Tartars  in  China,  everything  will  go*  on  as  before. 

15  If  they  ravage  and  destroy,  the  glory  of  palace  and  temple 
remains  but  in  ruins,  population  becomes  sparse,  and  knowl- 
edge and  art  are  lost. 

European  civilization  differs  in  character  from  ci^'iliza- 
tions  of  the  Egyptian  type  because  it  springs  not  from  the 

20  association  of  a  homogeneous  people  developing  from  the 
beginning,  or  at  least  for  a  long  time,  under  the  same  con- 
ditions, but  from  the  association  of  peoples  who  in  separa- 
tion had  acquired  distinctive  social  characteristics,  and  whose 
smaller   organizations   longer  prevented   the   concentration 

25  of  power  and  wealth  in  one  centre.  The  physical  conforma- 
tion of  the  Grecian  peninsula  is  such  as  to  separate  the  peo- 
ple at  first  into  a  number  of  small  communities.  As  those 
petty  republics  and  nominal  kingdoms  ceased  to  waste  their 
energies    in    warfare,    and    the    peaceable    co-operation    of 

30  commerce  extended,  the  light  of  civilization  blazed  up.  But 
the  principle  of  association  was  never  strong  enough  to  save 
Greece  from  inter-tribal  war,  and  when  this  was  put  an  end 
to  by  conquest,  the  tendency  to  inequality,  which  had  been 
combated  with  various  devices  by  Grecian  sages  and  states- 

35  men,  worked  its  result,  and  Grecian  valor,  art,  and  Hterature 
became  things  of  the  past.  And  so  in  the  rise  and  exten- 
sion, the  decline  and  fall,  of  Roman  civilization,  may  be  seen 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  221 

/ 

the   working   of   these   two   principles   of   association   and 
equality,  from  the  combination  of  which  springs  progress. 

Springing  from  the  association  of  the  independent  hus- 
bandmen and  free  citizens  of  Italy,  and  gaining  fresh  strength 
from  conquests  which  brought  hostile  nations  into  common  5 
relations,  the  Roman  power  hushed  the  world  in  peace. 
But  the  tendency  to  inequality,  checking  real  progress  from 
the  first,  increased  as  the  Roman  civilization  extended. 
The  Roman  civilization  did  not  petrify  as  did  the  homoge- 
neous civilizations  where  the  strong  bonds  of  custom  and  10 
superstition  that  held  the  people  in  subjection  probably 
also  protected  them,  or  at  any  rate  kept  the  peace  between 
rulers  and  ruled;  it  rotted,  declined  and  fell.  Long  before 
Goth  or  Vandal  had  broken  through  the  cordon  of  the 
legions,  even  while  her  frontiers  were  advancing,  Rome  was  15 
dead  at  the  heart.  Great  estates  had  ruined  Italy.  In- 
equaUty  had  dried  up  the  strength  and  destroyed  the  vigor 
of  the  Roman  world.  Government  became  despotism, 
which  even  assassination  could  not  temper;  patriotism  became 
servility;  vices  the  most  foul  flouted  themselves  in  public;  20 
literature  sank  to  puerilities;  learning  was  forgotten;  fer- 
tile districts  became  waste  without  the  ravages  of  war — 
everywhere  inequality  produced  decay,  political,  mental, 
moral,  and  material.  The  barbarism  which  overwhelmed 
Rome  came  not  from  without,  but  from  within.  It  was  the  25 
necessary  product  of  the  system  which  had  substituted 
slaves  and  colonii  for  the  independent  husbandmen  of 
Italy,  and  carved  the  provinces  into  estates  of  senatorial 
families. 

Modern  civilization  owes  its  superiority  to  the  growth  30 
of  equality  with  the  growth  of  association.  Two  great 
causes  contributed  to  this — the  splitting  up  of  concenti:ated 
power  into  innumerable  little  centers  by  the  influx  of  the 
Northern  nations,  and  the  inHuence  of  Christianity.  With- 
out the  first  there  would  have  been  the  petrifaction  and  slow 35 
decay  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  where  church  and  state  were 
closely  married  and  loss  of  external  power  brought  no  relief 


222  HENRY  GEORGE 

of  internal  tyranny.  And  but  for  the  other  there  would 
have  been  barbarism  without  principle  of  association  or 
amelioration.  The  petty  chiefs  and  allodial  lords  who 
everywhere  grasped  local  sovereignty  held  each  other  in 
5  check.  Italian  cities  recovered  their  ancient  liberty,  free 
towns  were  founded,  village  communities  took  root,  and 
serfs  acquired  rights  in  the  soil  they  tilled.  The  leaven  of 
Teutonic  ideas  of  equality  worked  through  the  disorganized 
and  disjointed  fabric  of  society.     And  although  society  was 

lo  split  up  into  an  innumerable  number  of  separated  fragments, 
yet  the  idea  of  closer  association  was  always  present — it 
existed  in  the  recollections  of  a  universal  empire;  it  existed 
in  the  claims  of  a  universal  church. 

Though    Christianity   became    distorted  and    alloyed   in 

15  percolating  through  a  rotting  civilization;  though  pagan 
gods  were  taken  into  her  pantheon,  and  pagan  forms  into 
her  ritual,  and  pagan  ideas  into  her  creed;  yet  her  essential 
idea  of  the  equality  of  men  was  never  wholly  destroyed. 
And  two  things  happened  of  the  utmost  moment  to  incipient 

20  civilization — the  establishment  of  the  papacy  and  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy.  The  first  prevented  the  spiritual 
power  from  concentrating  in  the  same  lines  as  the  temporal 
power;  and  the  latter  prevented  the  establishment  of  a 
priestly   caste,    during   a   time   when   all  power  tended  to 

25  hereditary  form. 

In  her  efforts  for  the  abolition  of  slavery;  in  her  Truce 
of  God;  in  her  monastic  orders;  in  her  councils  which 
united  nations,  and  her  edicts  which  ran  without  regard 
to  political  boundaries;    in  the  low-born  hands  in  which 

30 she  placed  a  sign  before  which  the  proudest  knelt;  in  her 
bishops  who  by  consecration  became  the  peers  of  the  greatest 
nobles;  in  her  "  Servant  of  Servants,"  for  so  his  official  title 
ran,  who,  by  \'irtue  of  the  ring  of  a  simple  fisherman,  claimed 
the  right  to  arbitrate  between  nations,  and  whose  stirrup 

35  was  held  by  kings;  the  Church,  in  spite  of  everything,  was 
yet  a  promoter  of  association,  a  witness  for  the  natural 
equality  of  men;    and  by  the  Church  herself  was  nurtured 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  223 

a  spirit  that,  when  her  early  work  of  association  and  emancipa- 
tion was  well-nigh  done — when  the  ties  she  had  knit  had 
become  strong,  and  the  learning  she  had  preserved  had  been 
given  to  the  world— broke  the  chains  with  which  she  would 
have  fettered  the  human  mind,  and  in  a  great  part  of  Europe  5 
rent  her  organization. 

The  rise  and  growth  of  European  civilization  is  too  vast 
and  complex  a  subject  to  be  thrown  into  proper  perspective 
and  relation  in  a  few  paragraphs;  but  in  all  its  details,  as 
in  its  main  features,  it  illustrates  the  truth  that  progress  lo 
goes  on  just  as  society  tends  toward  closer  association  and 
greater  equaUty.  Civilization  is  co-operation.  Union  and 
liberty  are  its  factors.  The  great  extension  of  association — 
not  alone  in  the  growth  of  larger  and  denser  communities, 
but  in  the  increase  of  commerce  and  the  manifold  exchanges  15 
which  knit  each  community  together  and  link  them  with 
other  though  widely  separated  communities;  the  growth 
of  international  and  municipal  law;  the  advances  in  security 
of  property  and  of  person,  in  individual  liberty,  and  towards 
democratic  government — advances,  in  short,  towards  the  20 
recognition  of  the  equal  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness — it  is  these  that  make  our  modern 
civilization  so  much  greater,  so  much  higher,  than  any  that 
has  gone  before.  It  is  these  that  have  set  free  the  mental 
power  which  has  rolled  back  the  veil  of  ignorance  which  25 
hid  all  but  a  small  portion  of  the  globe  from  men's  knowl- 
edge; which  has  measured  the  orbits  of  the  circling  spheres 
and  bids  us  see  moving,  pulsing  life  in  a  drop  of  water; 
which  has  opened  to  us  the  antechamber  of  nature's  mys- 
teries and  read  the  secrets  of  a  long-buried  past ;  which  has  30 
harnessed  in  our  service  physical  forces  beside  which  man's 
efiforts  are  puny;  and  increased  productive  power  by  a  thou- 
sand great  inventions. 

In  that   spirit  of  fatalism   to  which   I  have  alluded  as 
pervading   current    literature,    it    is    the    fashion    to   speak  35 
even  of  war  and  slavery  as  means  of  human  progress.     But 
war,  which  is  the  opposite  of  association,  can  aid  progress 


224  HENRY  GEORGE 

only  when  it  prevents  further  war  or  breaks  down  anti- 
social barriers  which  are  themselves  passive  war. 

As  for  slavery,  I  cannot  see  how  it  could  ever  have  aided 
in  establishing  freedom,  and  freedom,  the  synonym  of  equality 
5  is,  from  the  very  rudest  state  in  which  man  can  be  imagined, 
the  stimulus  and  condition  of  progress.  Auguste  Comte's 
idea  that  the  institution  of  slavery  destroyed  cannibalism 
is  as  fanciful  as  Elia  's  humorous  notion  of  the  way  mankind 
acquired  a  taste  for  roast  pig.     It  assumes  that  a  propensity 

lothat  has  never  been  found  developed  in  man  save  as  the 
result  of  the  most  unnatural  conditions — the  direst  want  or 
the  most  brutalizing  superstitions^ — is  an  original  impulse, 
and  that  he,  even  in  his  lowest  state  the  highest  of  all  animals, 
has  natural  appetites  which  the  nobler  brutes  do  not  show. 

IS  And  so  of  the  idea  that  slavery  began  civilization  by  giving 
slave  owners  leisure  for  improvement. 

Slavery  never  did  and  never  could  aid  improvement. 
Whether  the  community  consist  of  a  single  master  and  a 
single  slave,   or  of  thousands  of  masters  and  millions  of 

20  slaves,  slavery  necessarily  involves  a  waste  of  human  power; 
for  not  only  is  slave  labor  less  productive  than  free  labor, 
but  the  power  of  masters  is  likewise  wasted  in  holding  and 
watching  their  slaves,  and  is  called  away  from  directions 
in  which  real  improvement  lies.     From  first  to  last,  slavery, 

25  like  every  other  denial  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  has 
hampered  and  prevented  progress.  Just  in  proportion  as 
slavery  plays  an  important  part  in  the  social  organization  does 
improvement  cease.  That  in  the  classical  world  slavery 
was  so  universal,  is  undoubtedly  the  reason  why  the  mental 

30  activity  which  so  polished  literature  and  refined  art  never 
hit  on  any  of  the  great  discoveries  and  inventions  which 
distinguish   modern   civiHzation.     No   slave-holding   people 

^  The  Sandwich  Islanders  did  honor  to  their  good  chiefs  by  eating 
their  bodies.  Their  bad  and  t\'rannical  chiefs  they  would  not  touch. 
The  New  Zealanders  had  a  notion  that  by  eating  their  enemies  they 
acquired  their  strength  and  valor.  And  this  seems  to  be  the  general 
origin  of  eating  prisoners  of  war. — .Vuthor's  note. 


THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  225 

ever  were  an  inventive  people.  In  a  slave-holding  community 
the  upper  classes  may  become  luxurious  and  polished;  but 
never  inventive.  Whatever  degrades  the  laborer  and  robs 
him  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil  stifles  the  spirit  of  invention  and 
forbids  the  utilization  of  inventions  and  discoveries  even  s 
when  made.  To  freedom  alone  is  given  the  spell  of  power 
which  summons  the  genii  in  whose  keeping  are  the  treasures 
of  earth  and  the  viewless  forces  of  the  air. 

The  law  of  human  progress,  what  is  it  but  the  moral 
law?    Just  as  social  adjustments  promote  justice,  just  asio 
they  acknowledge  the  equality  of  right  between  man  and 
man,  just  as  they  insure  to  each  the  perfect  liberty  which 
is  bounded  only  by  the  equal  liberty  of  every  other,  must 
civilization  advance.     Just  as  they  fail  in  this,  must  advanc- 
ing   civilization    come    to    a    halt    and    recede.     Political  15 
economy  and  social  science  cannot  teach  any  lessons  that 
are  not  embraced  in  the  simple  truths  that  were  taught  to 
poor  fishermen  and  Jewish  peasants  by  One  who  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  was  crucified — the  simple  truths  which, 
beneath   the  warpings  of  selfishness  and  the  distortions  of  20 
superstition,  seem  to  underlie  every  religion  that  has  ever 
striven  to  formulate  the  spiritual  yearnings  of  man. 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  ^ 

Herbert  Spencer 

On  all  sides  we  have  found  the  result  of  long  personal 
experience,  to  be  the  conviction  that  trade  is  essentially 
corrupt.  In  tones  of  disgust  or  discouragement,  reprehen- 
sion or  derision,  according  to  their  several  natures,  men  in 
5  business  have  one  after  another  expressed  or  implied  this 
belief.  Omitting  the  highest  mercantile  classes,  a  few  of 
the  less  common  trades,  and  those  exceptional  cases  where 
an  entire  command  of  the  market  has  been  obtained,  the 
uniform   testimony   of   competent   judges   is,    that   success 

lois  incompatible  with  strict  integrity.  To  Uve  in  the  com- 
mercial world  it  appears  necessary  to  adopt  its  ethical  code: 
neither  exceeding  nor  falling  short  of  it — neither  being  less 
honest  nor  more  honest.  Those  who  sink  below  its  standard 
are  expelled;   while  those  who  rise  above  it  are  either  pulled 

15  down  to  it  or  ruined.  As,  in  self-defence,  the  civilised  man 
becomes  savage  among  savages;  so,  it  seems  that  in  self- 
defence,  the  scrupulous  trader  is  obliged  to  become  as  little 
scrupulous  as  his  competitors.  It  has  been  said  that  the 
law  of  the  animal  creation  is — "  Eat  and  be  eaten;  "    and 

20  of  our  trading  community  it  may  be  similarly  said  that  its 
law  is — Cheat  and  be  cheated.  A  system  of  keen  competi- 
tion, carried  on,  as  it  is,  without  adequate  moral  restraint, 
is  very  much  a  system  of  commercial  cannibalism.  Its 
alternatives  are — Use    the   same  weapons  as  your  antago- 

25  nists,  or  be  conquered  and  devoured. 

Of  questions  suggested  by  these  facts,  one  of  the  most 
obvious  is — Are  not  the  prejudices  that  have  ever  been  enter- 
tained against  trade  and  traders,  thus  fully  justified?    do 

1  From  "  Essays:  Moral,  Political  and  Aesthetic,"  1864. 

226 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  227 

not  these  meannesses  and  dishonesties,  and  the  moral  deg- 
radation they  imply,  warrant  the  disrespect  shown  to  men 
in  business?  A  prompt  affirmative  answer  will  probably 
be  looked  for;  but  we  very  much  doubt  whether  it  should 
be  given.  We  are  rather  of  opinion  that  these  delinquencies  s 
are  products  of  the  average  English  character  placed  under 
special  conditions.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  assuming 
that  the  trading  classes  are  intrinsically  worse  than  other 
classes.  Men  taken  at  random  from  higher  and  lower 
ranks,  would,  most  hkely,  if  similarly  circumstanced,  doio 
much  the  same.  Indeed  the  mercantile  world  might  readily 
recriminate.  Is  it  a  solicitor  who  comments  on  their  mis- 
doings? They  may  quickly  silence  him  by  referring  to 
the  countless  dark  stains  on  the  reputation  of  his  fraternity. 
Is  it  a  barrister?  His  frequent  practice  of  putting  in  pleas  15 
which  he  knows  are  not  valid;  and  his  established  habit 
of  taking  fees  for  work  that  he  does  not  perform;  make  his 
criticism  somewhat  suicidal.  Does  the  condemnation  come 
through  the  press?  The  condemned  may  remind  those 
who  write,  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  quite  honest  to  utter  20 
a  positive  verdict  on  a  book  merely  glanced  through,  or  to 
pen  glowing  eulogies  on  the  mediocre  work  of  a  friend 
while  slighting  the  good  one  of  an  enemy;  and  may  further 
ask  whether  those  who,  at  the  dictation  of  an  employer, 
write  what  they  disbelieve,  are  not  guilty  of  the  serious  25 
offence  of  adulterating  public  o[)inion. 

Moreover,  traders  might  contend  that  many  of  their 
delinquencies  are  thrust  on  them  by  the  injustice  of  their 
customers.  They,  and  especially  drapers,  might  point  to 
the  fact  that  the  habitual  demand  for  an  abatement  of  price,  30 
is  made  in  utter  disregard  of  their  reasonable  profits;  and 
that  to  protect  themselves  against  attempts  to  gain  by  J;heir 
loss,  they  are  obliged  to  name  prices  greater  than  those  they 
intend  to  take.  They  might  also  urge  that  the  strait  to 
which  they  are  often  brought  by  the  non-payment  of  accounts  35 
due  from  their  wealthier  customers,  is  itself  a  cause  of  their 
malpractices:    obliging    them,  as  it  does,  to  use  all  means, 


228  HERBERT  SPENCER 

illegitimate  as  well  as  legitimate,  for  getting  the  wherewith 
to  meet  their  engagements.  In  proof  of  the  wrongs  inflicted 
on  them  by  the  non-trading  classes,  they  might  instance 
the  well-known  cases  of  large  shopkeepers  in  the  West-end, 
5  who  have  been  either  ruined  by  the  unpunctuality  of  their 
customers,  or  have  been  obliged  periodically  to  stop  pay- 
ment, as  the  only  way  of  getting  their  bills  settled.  And 
then,  after  proving  that  those  without  excuse  show  this 
disregard  of  other  men's  claims,  traders  might  ask  whether 

lo  they,  who  have  the  excuse  of  having  to  contend  with  a  merci- 
less competition,  are  alone  to  be  blamed  if  they  display 
a  like  disregard  in  other  forms. 

Nay,  even  to  the  guardians  of  social  rectitude— members 
of  the  legislature — they  might  use  the  tu  qiwque  argument: 

IS  asking  whether  bribery  of  a  customer's  servant,  is  any  worse 
than  bribery  of  an  elector?  or  whether  the  gaining  of  suf- 
frages by  claptrap  hustings-speeches,  containing  insincere 
professions  adapted  to  the  taste  of  the  constituency,  is  not 
as  bad  as  getting  an  order  for  goods  by  delusive  representa- 

2otions  respecting  their  quality?  No;  it  seems  probable 
that  close  inquiry  would  show  few  if  any  classes  to  be  free 
from  immoralities  that  are  as  great,  relatively  to  the  tempta- 
tions, as  those  which  we  have  been  exposing.  Of  course  they 
will  not  be  so  petty  or  so  gross  where  the  circumstances  do 

25  not  prompt  pettiness  or  grossness;  nor  so  constant  and 
organised  where  the  class-conditions  have  not  tended  to 
make  them  habitual.  But,  taken  with  these  qualifica- 
tions, we  think  that  much  might  be  said  for  the  proposi- 
tion that  the  trading  classes,  neither  better  nor  worse  intrin- 

3osically  than  other  classes,  are  betrayed  into  their  flagitious 
habits  by  external  causes. 

Another  question,  here  naturally  arising,  is — "  Are  not 
these  evils  growing  worse?"  Many  of  the  facts  we  have 
cited  seem  to  imply  that  they  are.     And  yet  there  are  many 

35  other  facts  which  point  as  distinctly  the  other  way.  In 
weighing  the  evidence,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  that  the  much 
greater  public  attention  at  present  paid  to  such  matters, 


thp:  morals  of  trade  229 

is  itself  a  source  of  error — is  apt  to  generate  the  belief  that 
evils  now  becoming  recognised,  are  evils  that  have  recently 
arisen;  when  in  truth  they  have  merely  been  hitherto  dis- 
regarded, or  less  regarded.  It  has  been  clearly  thus  with 
crime,  with  distress,  with  popular  ignorance;  and  it  is  very  5 
probably  thus  with  trading-dishonesties.  As  it  is  true  of 
individual  beings,  that  their  height  in  the  scale  of  creation 
may  be  measured  by  the  degree  of  their  self-consciousness; 
so,  in  a  sense,  it  is  true  of  societies.  Advanced  and  highly- 
organised  societies  are  distinguished  from  lower  ones  by  the  lo 
evolution  of  something  that  stands  for  a  social  self-con- 
sciousness— a  consciousness  in  each  citizen,  of  the  state  of 
the  aggregate  of  citizens.  Among  ourselves  there  has, 
happily,  been  of  late  years  a  remarkable  growth  of  this 
social  self-consciousness;  and  we  believe  that  to  this  is  15 
chiefly  ascribable  the  impression  that  commercial  mal- 
practices  are   increasing. 

Such  facts  as  have  come  down  to  us  respecting  the  trade 
of  past  times,  confirm  this  view.     In  his  "  Complete  English 
Tradesman,"    Defoe    mentions,    among    other    manoeuvres  20 
of   retailers,   the   false   lights   which   they   introduced   into 
their  shops,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  delusive  appearances 
to  their  goods.     He  comments  on  the  "  shop  rhetorick," 
the    "  flux    of    falsehoods,"    which    tradesmen    habitually 
uttered  to  their  customers;    and  quotes  their  defence  as 25 
being  that  they  could  not  live  without  lying.     He  says, 
too,   that   there   was  scarce  a   shopkeeper  who  had  not  a 
bag  of  spurious  or  debased  coin,  from  which  he  gave  change 
whenever  he  could;    and  that  men,  even  the  most  honest, 
triumphed  in  their  skill  in  getting  rid  of  bad  money.     These  30 
facts  show  that  the  mercantile  morals  of  that  day  were, 
at  any  rate,  not  better  than  ours;    and  if  we  call  to  n;ind 
the  numerous  Acts  of  Parliament  passed  in  old  times  to 
prevent  frauds  of  all  kinds,  we  perceive  the  like  implication. 
As  much  may,  indeed,  be  safely  inferred  from  the  general  35 
state  of  society. 

When,  reign  after  reign,  governments  debased  the  coinage, 


230  HERBERT  SPENCER 

the  moral  tone  of  the  middle  classes  could  scarcely  have  been 
higher  than  now.  Among  generations  whose  sympathy 
with  the  claims  of  fellow-creatures  was  so  weak,  that  the 
slave-trade  was  not  only  thought  justifiable,  but  the  ini- 
5  tiator  of  it  was  rewarded  by  permission  to  record  the  feat 
in  his  coat  of  arms,  it  is  hardly  possible  that  men  respected 
the  claims  of  their  fellow-citizens  more  than  at  present. 
Times  characterized  by  an  administration  of  justice  so 
inefficient  that  there   were  in  London    nests  of  criminals 

lo  who  defied  the  law,  and  on  all  high  roads  robbers  who  eluded 
it,  cannot  have  been  distinguished  by  just  mercantile  deal- 
ings. While,  conversely,  an  age  which,  like  ours,  has  seen 
so  many  equitable  social  changes  thrust  on  the  legislature  by 
public  opinion,  is  very  unlikely  to  be  an  age  in  which  the 

15  transactions  between  individuals  have  been  growing  more 
inequitable.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  undeniable  that 
many  of  the  dishonesties  we  have  described  are  of  modern 
origin.  Not  a  few  of  them  have  become  established  during 
the  last  thirty  years;    and  others   are   even   now   arising. 

20  How  are  the  seeming  contradictions  to  be  reconciled? 

We  beUeve  the  reconciliation  is  not  difficult.  It  hes 
in  the  fact  that  while  the  great  and  direct  frauds  ha\-e  been 
diminishing,  the  small  and  indirect  frauds  have  been  increas- 
ing:   alike  in  variety  and  in  number.     And  this  admission 

25  we  take  to  be  quite  consistent  with  the  opinion  that  the 
standard  of  commercial  morals  is  higher  than  it  was.  For, 
if  we  omit,  as  excluded  from  the  question,  the  penal  restraints 
— religious  and  legal — and  ask  what  is  the  ultimate  moral 
restraint   to    the   aggression     of   man   on   man,   we  find  it 

30  to  be — sympathy  with  the  pain  inflicted.  Now  the  keen- 
ness of  the  sympathy,  depending  on  the  vividness  with 
which  this  pain  is  realised,  varies  with  the  conditions  of  the 
case.  It  may  be  active  enough  to  check  misdeeds  which 
will  cause  great  suffering;    and  yet  not  be  active  enough  lo 

35  check  misdeeds  which  will  cause  but  slight  annoyance. 
While  sufficiently  acute  to  ])revent  a  man  from  doing  that 
which  will  entail    immediate  injury  on  a  given  person,  it 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  231 

may  not  be  sufficiently  acute  to  prevent  him  from  doing 
that  which  will  entail  remote  injuries  on  unknown  persons. 
And  we  find  the  facts  to  agree  with  this  deduction,  that  the 
moral  restraint  varies  according  to  the  clearness  with  which 
the  evil  consequences  are  conceived.  Many  a  one  who  5 
would  shrink  from  picking  a  pocket  does  not  scruple  to 
adulterate  his  goods;  and  he  who  never  dreams  of  passing 
base  coin,  will  yet  be  a  party  to  joint-stock-bank  decep- 
tions. Hence,  as  we  say,  the  multiplication  of  the  more 
subtle  and  complex  forms  of  fraud,  is  consistent  with  a  gen-  lo 
eral  progress  in  morality;  provided  it  is  accompanied  with 
a  decrease  in  the  grosser  forms  of  fraud. 

But  the  question  which  most  concerns  us  is,  not  whether 
the  morals  of  trade  are  better  or  worse  than  they  have  been, 
but  rather — why  are  they  so  bad?  Why  in  this  civilised  15 
state  of  ours,  is  there  so  much  that  betrays  the  cunning 
selfishness  of  the  savage?  Why,  after  the  careful  inculca- 
tions of  rectitude  during  education,  comes  there  in  after- 
life all  this  knavery?  Why,  in  spite  of  all  the  exhorta- 
tions to  which  the  commercial  classes  listen  every  Sunday,  20 
do  they  next  morning  recommence  their  evil  deeds?  What 
is  this  so  potent  agency  which  almost  neutralises  the  dis- 
cipline of  education,  of  law,  of  religion? 

Various  subsidiary  causes  that  might  be  assigned,  must 
be  passed  over,  that  we  may  have  space  to  deal  with  the  25 
chief  cause.     In  an  exhaustive  statement,  something  would 
have  to  be  said  on  the  credulity  of  consumers,  which  leads 
them  to  believe  in  representations  of  impossible  advantages; 
and  something,  too,  on  their  greediness,  which,  ever  prompt- 
ing them  to  look  for  more  than  they  ought  to  get,  encourages  30 
the  sellers  to  offer  delusive  bargains.     The  increased  difficulty 
of   living  consequent   on   growing  pressure   of  population, 
might  perhaps  come  in  as  a  part  cause;    and  that  greater 
cost  of  bringing  up  a  family,  which  results  from  the  higher 
standard    of    education,   might    be   added.     But   all   these 35 
are    relatively    insignificant.     The    great    inciter    of    these 
trading   malpractices   is,    intense   desire   for   wealth.      And 


232  HERBERT  SPENCER 

if  we  ask — Why  this  intense  desire?     the  reply  is — It  results 
from  the  indiscriminate  respect  paid  to  wealth. 

To  be  distinguished  from  the  common  herd — to  be  some- 
body— to  make  a  name,  a  position — this  is  the  universal 

5  ambition;  and  to  accumulate  riches,  is  aUke  the  surest 
and  the  easiest  way  of  fulfilling  this  ambition.  Very  early 
in  life  all  learn  this.  At  school,  the  court  paid  to  one  whose 
parents  have  called  in  their  carriage  to  see  him,  is  con- 
spicuous;   while  the  poor  boy,  whose  insufficient  stock  of 

lo  clothes  implies  the  small  means  of  his  family,  soon  has  burnt 
into  his  memory  the  fact  that  poverty  is  contemptible. 
On  entering  the  world,  the  lessons  that  may  have  been  taught 
about  the  nobility  of  self-sacrifice,  the  reverence  due  to 
genius,   the   admirableness   of   high   integrity,   are   quickly 

15  neutralised  by  experience:  men's  actions  proving  that  these 
are  not  their  standards  of  respect.  It  is  soon  perceived 
that  while  abundant  outward  marks  of  deference  from 
fellow-citizens,  may  almost  certainly  be  gained  by  direct- 
ing every  energy  to  the  accumulation  of  property,  they  are 

20 but  rarely  to  be  gained  in  any  other  way;  and  that  even 
in  the  few  cases  where  they  are  otherwise  gained,  they 
are  not  given  with  entire  unreserve;  but  are  commonly 
joined  with  a  more  or  less  manifest  display  of  patronage. 
When,  seeing  this,  the  young  man  further  sees  that  while 

25  the  acquisition  of  property  is  quite  possible  with  his  mediocre 
endowments,  the  acquirement  of  distinction  by  brilliant 
discoveries,  or  heroic  acts,  or  high  achievements  in  art, 
implies  faculties  and  feelings  which  he  does  not  possess; 
it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  he  devotes  himself 

30  heart  and  soul  to  business. 

We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  men  act  on  the  consciously 
reasoned-out  conclusions  thus  indicated;  but  we  mean  that 
these  conclusions  are  the  unconsciously-formed  products 
of  their  daily  experience.     From  early  childhood,  the  say- 

35  ings  and  doings  of  all  around  them  have  generated  the  idea 
that  wealth  and  respectability  are  two  sides  of  the  same 
thing.     This  idea,  growing  with  their  growth,  and  strength- 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  233 

ening  with  their  strength,  becomes  at  last  almost  what  we 
may  call  an  organic  conviction.  And  this  organic  convic- 
tion it  is,  which  prompts  the  expenditure  of  all  their  energies 
in  money-making.  We  contend  that  the  chief  stimulus 
is  not  the  desire  for  the  wealth  itself;  but  for  the  applause  5 
and  position  which  the  wealth  brings.  And  in  this  belief, 
we  find  ourselves  at  one  with  various  intelligent  traders 
with  whom  we  have  talked  on  the  matter. 

It   is   incredible   that   men   should   make   the   sacrifices, 
mental  and  bodily,  which  they  do,  merely  to  get  the  material  10 
benefits  which  money   purchases.     Who  would   undertake 
an  extra  burden  of  business  for  the  purpose  of  getting  a 
cellar  of  choice  wines  for  his  own  drinking?    He  who  does 
it,  does  it  that  he  may  have  choice  wines  to  give  his  guests 
and  gain  their  praises.     What  merchant  would  spend  an  15 
additional  hour  at  his  office  daily,  merely  that  he  might 
move  into  a  larger  house  in  a  better  quarter?    In  so  far  as 
health  and  comfort  are  concerned,  he  knows  he  will  be  a 
loser  by  the  exchange;  and  would  never  be  induced  to  make 
it,  were  it  not  for  the  increased  social  consideration  which  20 
the  new  house  will  bring  him.     Where  is  the  man  who  would 
lie  awake  at  nights  devising  means  of  increasing  his  income 
in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  provdde  his  wife  with  a  carriage, 
were  the  use  of  the  carriage  the  sole  consideration?    It  is 
because  of  the  eclat  which  the  carnage  will  give,  that  he  25 
enters  on  these  additional  anxieties.     So  manifest,  so  trite, 
indeed,   are   these  truths,   that  we  should  be  ashamed   of 
insisting  on  them,  did  not  our  argument  require  it. 

For  if  the  desire  for  that  homage  which  wealth  brings,  is 
the  chief  stimulus  to  these  strivings  after  wealth,  then  is  30 
the  giving  of  this  homage  (when  given,  as  it  is,  with  but 
little  discrimination)  the  chief  cause  of  the  dishonesties 
into,  which  these  strivings  betray  mercantile  men.  When 
the  shopkeeper,  on  the  strength  of  a  prosperous  yea,r  and 
favourable  prospects,  has  yielded  to  his  wife's  persuasions,  35 
and  replaced  the  old  furniture  with  new,  at  an  outlay  greater 
than  his  income  covers — when,  instead  of  the  hoped-for 


234  HERBERT  SPENCER 

increase,  the  next  year  brings  a  decrease  in  his  returns — 
when  he  finds  that  his  expenses  are  out-running  his  revenue; 
then  does  he  fall  under  the  strongest  temptation  to  adopt 
some  newly-introduced  adulteration  or  other  malpractice. 
5  When,  having  by  display  gained  a  certain  recognition,  the 
wholesale  trader  begins  to  give  dinners  appropriate  only 
to  those  of  ten  times  his  income,  with  expensive  other  enter- 
tainments to  match — when,  having  for  a  time  carried  on  this 
style  at  a  cost  greater  than  he  can  afjford,  he  finds  that  he 

lo cannot  discontinue  it  without  giving  up  his  position:  then 
is  he  most  strongly  prompted  to  enter  into  larger  transac- 
tions; to  trade  beyond  his  means;  to  seek  undue  credit;  to 
get  into  that  ever-complicating  series  of  misdeeds,  which 
ends  in  disgraceful  bankruptcy.     And  if  these  are  the  facts — 

1 5  the  undeniable  facts — then  is  it  an  unavoidable  conclusion 
that  the  blind  admiration  which  society  gives  to  mere  wealth, 
and  the  display  of  wealth,  is  the  chief  source  of  these  mul- 
titudinous immoralities. 

Yes,  the  evil  is  deeper  than  appears — draws  its  nutriment 

2ofrom  far  below  the  surface.  This  gigantic  system  of  dis- 
honesty, branching  out  into  every  conceivable  form  of  fraud, 
has  roots  that  run  underneath  our  whole  social  fabric,  and, 
sending  fibres  into  every  house,  suck  up  strength  from  our 
daily  sayings  and  doings.     In  every  dining-room  a  rootlet 

25  finds  food,  when  the  conversation  turns  on  So-and-so's 
successful  speculations,  his  purchase  of  an  estate,  his  probable 
worth — on  this  man's  recent  large  legacy,  and  the  other's 
advantageous  match;  for  being  thus  talked  about  is  one 
foim  of  that  tacit  respect  which  men  struggle  for.     Every 

30  drawing-room  furnishes  nourishment,  in  the  admiration 
awarded  to  costliness — to  silks  that  are  ''  rich,"  that  is, 
expensive;  to  dresses  that  contain  an  enormous  quantity 
of  material,  that  is,  are  expensive;  to  laces  that  are  hand- 
made, that  is,  expensive;   to  diamonds  that  are  rare,  that  is, 

35  expensive;  to  china  that  is  old,  that  is,  expensive.  And 
from  scores  of  small  remarks  and  minutiae  of  behaviour, 
which,  in  all  circles,  hourly  imply  how  completely  the  idea 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  235 

of  respectability  involves  that  of  costly  externals,  there  is 
drawn  fresh  pabulum. 

We  arc  all  implicated.     We  all,  whether  with  self-appro- 
bation or  not,   give   expression  to   the   established   feeling. 
Even  he  who  disa[)proves  this  feeling,  finds  himself  unable  5 
to  treat  virtue  in   threadbare  apparel  with  a  cordiality  as 
great  as  that  which   he  would  show  to  the  same  virtue 
endowed  with  jirosperity.     Scarcely  a  man  is  to  be  found 
who  would  not  behave  with  more  civility  to  a  knave  in 
broadcloth  than  to  a  knave  in  fustian.     Though  for  thero 
deference  which  they  have  shown  to  the  vulgar  rich,  or  the 
dishonestly  successful,  men  afterwards  compound  with  their 
consciences  by  privately  venting  their  contempt;   yet  when 
they  again  come  face  to  face  with  these  imposing  externals 
covering  worthlessness,  they  do  as  before.     And  so  long  as  is 
imposing  worthlessness  gets  the  visible  marks  of  respect, 
while  the  disrespect  felt  for  it  is  hidden,  it  naturally  flourishes. 

Hence,  then,  is  it  that  men  persevere  in  these  evil  practices 
which    all    condemn.     They    can    so   purchase   a   homage, 
which  if  not  genuine,  is  yet,  so  far  as  appearances  go,  as  20 
good  as  the  best.     To  one  whose  wealth  has  been  gained  by  a 
life  of  frauds,  what  matters  it  that  his  name  is  in  all  circles 
a  synonym  of   roguery?     Has  he   not  been  conspicuously 
honoured  by  being  twice  elected  mayor  of  his  town?    (we 
state  a  fact)  and  does  not  this,  joined  to  the  personal  con-  25 
sideration  shown  him,  outweigh  in  his  estimation  all  that 
is  said  against  him:    of  which  he  hears  scarcely  anything? 
When,  not  many  years  after  the  exposure  of  his  inequitable 
dealing,   a   trader  attains   to   the   highest  civic  distinction 
which  the  kingdom  has  to  offer;   and  that,  too,  through  the 30 
instrumentaUty  of  those  who  best  know  his  delinquency; 
is  not  the  fact  an  encouragement  to  him,  and  to  all  others, 
to  sacrifice  rectitude  to  aggrandisement?    If,  after  Hstening 
to  a  sermon   that  has  by  implication  denounced  the  dis- 
honesties he  has  been  guilty  of,  the  rich  ill-doer  finds,  on  35 
leaving  church,  that  his  neighbours  cap  to  him;    doc?  not 
this  tacit  approval  go  far  to  neutralise  the  effect  of  all  he 


236  HERBERT  SPENCER 

has  heard?  The  truth  is,  that  with  the  great  majority  of 
men,  the  visible  expression  of  social  opinion  is  far  the  most 
efhcient  of  incentives  and  restraints.  Let  any  one  who 
wishes  to  estimate  the  strength  of  this  control,  propose  to 
S  himself  to  walk  through  the  streets  in  the  dress  of  a  dustman, 
or  hawk  vegetables  from  door  to  door.  Let  him  feel,  as  he 
probably  will,  that  he  had  rather  do  something  morally 
wrong  than  commit  such  a  breach  of  usage,  and  suffer  the 
resulting  derision.     And  he  will  then  better  estimate  how 

I  o  powerful  a  curb  to  men  is  the  open  disapproval  of  their 
fellows;  and  how,  conversely,  the  outward  applause  of 
their  fellows  is  a  stimulus  surpassing  all  others  in  intensity. 
Fully  reaUsing  which  facts,  he  will  see  that  the  immoralities 
of  trade  are  in  great  part  traceable  to  an  immoral  public 

IS  opinion. 

Let  none  infer,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  the  payment 
of  respect  to  wealth  rightly  acquired  and  rightly  used,  is 
deprecated.  In  its  original  meaning,  and  in  due  degree,  the 
feeling   which   prompts   such   respect   is   good.     Primarily, 

20  wealth  is  the  sign  of  mental  power;  and  this  is  always  respect- 
able. To  have  honestly-acquired  property,  implies  intel- 
ligence, energy,  self-control;  and  these  are  worthy  of  the 
homage  that  is  indirectly  paid  to  them  by  admiring  their 
results.     Moreover,   the  good  administration  and  increase 

25  of  inherited  property,  also  requires  its  virtues;  and  therefore 
demands  its  share  of  approbation.  And  besides  being 
applauded  for  their  display  of  faculty,  men  who  gain  and 
increase  wealth  are  to  be  applauded  as  pubhc  benefactors. 
For  he  who  as  manufacturer  or  merchant,   has,   without 

30  injustice  to  others,  realised  a  fortune,  is  thereby  proved 
to  have  discharged  his  functions  better  than  those  who 
have  been  less  successful.  By  greater  skill,  better  judgment, 
or  more  economy  than  his  competitors,  he  has  afforded  the 
pubhc   greater   advantages.     His   extra   profits   are   but   a 

35  share  of  the  extra  produce  obtained  by  the  same  expenditure: 
the  other  share  going  to  the  consumers.  And  similarly,  the 
landowner  who,  by  judicious  outlay,  has  increased  the  value 


THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE  237 

(that  is,  the  productiveness)  of  his  estate,  has  thereby 
added  to  the  stock  of  national  capital.  By  all  means,  then, 
let  the  right  acquisition  and  proper  use  of  wealth,  have  their 
due  share  of  admiration. 

But  that  which  we  condemn  as  the  chief  cause  of  com-  5 
mercial  dishonesty,  is  the  indiscriminate  admiration  of  wealth 
— an  admiration  that  has  little  or  no  reference  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  possessor.  When,  as  very  generally  happens, 
the  external  signs  are  revxTcnced,  where  they  signify  no 
internal  worthiness — nay,  even  where  they  cover  internal  lo 
unworthiness;  then  does  the  feeling  become  vicious.  It 
is  this  idolatry  which  worships  the  symbol  apart  from  the 
thing  symbolised,  that  is  the  root  of  all  these  evils  we  have 
been  exposing.  So  long  as  men  pay  homage  to  those  social 
benefactors  who  have  grown  rich  honestly,  they  give  a  15 
wholesome  stimulus  to  industry;  but  when  they  accord  a 
share  of  their  homage  to  those  social  malefactors  who  have 
grown  rich  dishonestly,  then  do  they  foster  corruption — 
then  do  they  become  accomplices  in  all  these  frauds  of 
commerce.  20 

,\  As  for  remedy,  it  manifestly  follows  that  there  is  none 
save  a  purified  public  opinion.  When  that  abhorrence 
which  society  now  shows  to  direct  theft,  is  shown  to  theft 
of  all  degrees  of  indirectness,  then  will  these  mercantile 
vices  disappear.  When  not  only  the  trader  who  adulterates  25 
or  gives  short  measure,  but  also  the  merchant  who  over- 
trades, the  bank-director  who  countenances  an  exaggerated 
report,  and  the  railway-director  who  repudiates  his  guarantee, 
come  to  be  regarded  as  of  the  same  genus  as  the  pickpocket, 
and  are  treated  with  like  disdain;  then  will  the  morals  of 30 
trade  become  what  they  should  be. 

We  have  little  hope,  however,  that  any  such  higher  tone 
of  public  opinion  will  shortly  be  reached.  The  present 
condition  of  things  ai)iK'ars  to  be,  in  great  measure,  a  rieces- 
sary  accompaniment  of  our  present  phase  of  progress.  35 
Throughout  the  civilised  world,  especially  in  England,  and 
above  all  in  America,  social  actixity  is  almost  wholly  expended 


238  HERBERT  SPENCER  -    - 

in  material  development.  To  subjugate  Nature,  and  bring 
the  powers  of  production  and  distribution  to  their  highest 
perfection,  is  the  task  of  our  age;  and  probably  of  many- 
future  ages.  And  as  in  times  when  national  defence  and 
5  conquest  were  the  chief  desiderata,  military  achievement 
was  honoured  above  all  other  things;  so  now,  when  the 
chief  desideratum  is  industrial  growth,  honour  is  most 
conspicuously  given  to  that  which  generally  indicates  the 
aiding  of  industrial  growth.     The  English  nation  at  present 

lo displays  what  we  may  call  the  commercial  diathesis;  and 
the  undue  admiration  for  wealth  appears  to  be  its  con- 
comitant— a  relation  still  more  conspicuous  in  the  worship 
of  "  the  almighty  dollar  "  by  the  Americans.  And  while 
the  commercial  diathesis,  with  its  accompanying  standard 

IS  of  distinction,  continues,  we  fear  the  evils  we  have  been 
delineating  can  be  but  partially  cured.  It  seems  hopeless 
to  expect  that  men  will  distinguish  between  that  wealth 
which  represents  personal  superiority  and  benefits  done  to 
society,  from  that  which  does  not.     The  symbols,  the  exter- 

2onals,  have  all  the  world  through  swayed  the  masses;  and 
must  long  continue  to  do  so.  Even  the  cultivated,  who 
are  on  their  guard  against  the  bias  of  associated  ideas,  and 
try  to  separate  the  real  from  the  seeming,  cannot  escape 
the    influence   of    current    opinion.      We   must,    therefore, 

25  content  ourselves  with  looking  for  a  slow  amelioration. 

Something,  however,  may  even  now  be  done  by  vigorous 
protest  against  adoration  of  mere  success.  And  it  is  impor- 
tant that  it  should  be  done,  considering  how  this  vicious 
sentiment  is  being    fostered.     When   we   have  one  of   our 

30  leading  moralists  preaching,  with  increasing  vehemence,  the 
doctrine  of  sanctification  by  force — when  we  are  told  that 
while  a  selfishness  troubled  with  qualms  of  conscience  is 
contemptible,  a  selfishness  intense  enough  to  trample  down 
every  thing  in  the  unscrupulous  pursuit  of  its  ends,  is  worthy 

3;  of  all  admiration — when  we  find  that  if  it  be  sufficiently 
great,  power,  no  matter  of  what  kind  or  how  directed,  is 
held  up  for  our  reverence;    we  may  fear  lest  the  prevalent 


THE   MORALS   OF  TRADE  239 

applause  of  mere  success,  together  with  the  commercial 
vices  which  it  stimulates,  should  be  increased  rather  than 
diminished.  Not  at  all  by  this  hero-worship  grown  into 
brute-worship,  is  society  to  be  made  better;  but  by  exactly 
the  opposite — by  a  stern  criticism  of  the  means  through  s 
which  success  has  been  achieved;  and  by  according  honour 
to  the  higher  and  less  selfish  modes  of  activity. 

And  happily  the  signs  of  this  more  moral  public  opinion 
are  already  showing  themselves.  It  is  becoming  a  tacitly- 
received  doctrine  that  the  rich  should  not,  as  in  by-gone  lo 
times,  spend  their  lives  in  personal  gratification;  but  should 
devote  them  to  the  general  welfare.  Year  by  year  is  the 
improvement  of  the  people  occupying  a  larger  share  of  the 
attention  of  the  upper  classes.  Year  by  year  are  they 
voluntarily  devoting  more  and  more  energy  to  furthering  15 
the  material  and  mental  progress  of  the  masses.  And  those 
among  them  who  do  not  join  in  the  discharge  of  these  high 
functions,  are  beginning  to  be  looked  upon  with  more  or  less 
contempt  by  their  own  order.  This  latest  and  most  hope- 
ful fact  in  human  history — this  new  and  better  chivalry — 20 
promises  to  evolve  a  higher  standard  of  honour;  and  so  to 
ameliorate  many  evils:  among  others  those  which  we  have 
detailed.  When  wealth  obtained  by  illegitimate  means 
inevitably  brings  nothing  but  disgrace — when  to  wealth 
rightly  acquired  is  accorded  only  its  due  share  of  homage,  25 
while  the  greatest  homage  is  given  lo  those  who  consecrate 
their  energies  and  their  means  to  the  noblest  ends;  then 
may  we  be  sure  that  along  with  other  accompanying  bene- 
fits, the  morals  of  trade  will  be  greatly  purified. 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  i 

Thomas  Henry  Huxley 

In  order  to  make  the  title  of  this  discourse  generally  intel- 
ligible, I  have  translated  the  term  "  Protoplasm,"  which 
is  the  scientific  name  of  the  substance  of  which  I  am  about 
to  speak,  by  the  words  "  the  physical  basis  of  life."  I 
5  suppose  that,  to  many,  the  idea  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  physical  basis,  or  matter,  of  Hfe  may  be  novel — so 
widely  spread  is  the  conception  of  hfe  as  a  something  which 
works  through  matter,  but  is  independent  of  it;  and  even 
those  who  are  aware  that  matter  and  Hfe  are  inseparably 

lo  connected,  may  not  be  prepared  for  the  conclusion  plainly 
suggested  by  the  phrase,  "  the  physical  basis  or  matter  of 
life,"  that  there  is  some  one  kind  of  matter  which  is  common 
to  all  Hving  beings,  and  that  their  endless  diversities  are 
bound  together  by  a  physical,  as  well  as  an  ideal,  unity. 

15  In  fact,  when  first  apprehended,  such  a  doctrine  as  this 
appears  almost  shocking  to  common  sense. 

What,  truly,  can  seem  to  be  more  obviously  different 
from  one  another,  in  faculty,  in  form,  and  in  substance, 
than  the  various  kinds  of  hving  beings?     What  community 

20  of  faculty  can  there  be  between  the  brightly-coloured  lichen, 
which  so  nearly  resembles  a  mere  mineral  incrustation  of 
the  bare  rock  on  which  it  grows,  and  the  painter,  to  whom 
it  is  instinct  with  beauty,  or  the  botanist,  whom  it  feeds 
with  knowledge? 

^  The  substance  of  this  paper  was  contained  in  an  address  which 
was  dehvered  in  Edinburgh  in  i868.  The  paper  was  pubHshed  in 
"  Lay  Sermons,"  1870. 

240 


ox  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS   OF  LIFE  241 

Again,  think  of  the  microscopic  fungus — a  mere  infinitesi- 
mal ovoid  particle,  which  finds  space  and  duration  enough 
to  multiply  into  countless  millions  in  the  body  of  a  living 
fly;  and  then  of  the  wealth  of  foliage,  the  luxuriance  of 
flower  and  fruit,  which  lies  between  this  bald  sketch  of  a  S 
plant  and  the  giant  pine  of  California,  towering  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  cathedral  spire,  or  the  Indian  fig,  which 
covers  acres  with  its  profound  shadow,  and  endures  while 
nations  and  empires  come  and  go  around  its  vast  circumfer- 
ence. Or,  turning  to  the  other  half  of  the  world  of  life,  lo 
picture  to  yourselves  the  great  Finner  whale,  hugest  of 
beasts  that  live,  or  have  lived,  disporting  his  eighty  or  ninety 
feet  of  bone,  muscle,  and  blubber,  with  easy  roll,  among 
waves  in  which  the  stoutest  ship  that  ever  left  dockyard 
would  flounder  hopelessly;  and  contrast  him  with  the  invis- 15 
ible  animalcules — mere  gelatinous  specks,  multitudes  of 
which  could,  in  fact,  dance  upon  the  point  of  a  needle  with 
the  same  ease  as  the  angels  of  the  Schoolmen  could,  in 
imagination.  With  these  images  before  your  minds,  you 
may  well  ask,  what  community  of  form,  or  structure,  is  20 
there  between  the  animalcule  and  the  whale;  or  between  the 
fungus  and  the  fig-tree?     And,  a  fortiori,^  between  all  four? 

Finally,  if  we  regard  substance,  or  material  composition, 
what  hidden  bond  can  connect  the  flower  which  a  girl  wears 
in  her  hair  and  the  blood  which  courses  through  her  youthful  25 
veins;  or,  what  is  there  in  common  between  the  dense  and 
resisting  mass  of  the  oak,  or  the  strong  fabric  of  the  tor- 
toise, and  those  broad  disks  of  glassy  jelly  which  may  be 
seen  pulsating  through  the  waters  of  a  calm  sea,  but  which 
drain  away  to  mere  films  in  the  hand  which  raises  them  30 
out  of  their  element? 

Such  objections  as  these  must,  I  think,  arise  in  the  mind 
of  every  one  who  ponders,  for  the  first  time,  upon  the  con- 
ception of  a  single  physical  basis  of  life  underlying  all  the 
diversities  of  vital  existence;  but  I  propose  to  demonstrate 35 
to  you  that,  notwithstanding  these  apparent  difiiculties,  a 
^  djoriiori:  wilh  stronger  reason. 


242  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

threefold  unity — namely,  a  unity  of  power  or  faculty,  a 
unity  of  form,  and  a  unity  of  substantial  composition — does 
pervade  the  whole  living  world. 

No  very  abstruse  argumentation  is  needed,  in  the  first 
5  place,  to  prove  that  the  powers,  or  faculties,  of  all  kinds  of 
living  matter,  diverse  as  they  may  be  in  degree,  are  substan- 
tially similar  in  kind. 

Goethe  has  condensed  a  survey  of  all  powers  of  mankind 
into  the  well-known  epigram: — 

lo  "  Warum  treibt  sich  das  Volk  so  und  schreit?     Es  will  sich  ernahren, 
Kinder  zeugen,  und  die  nahren  so  gut  es  vermag. 

ip  ^  *  ^  ^  ip 

Weiter  bringt  es  kein  Mensch,  stell'  er  sich  wie  er  auch  will."  ^ 

In  physiological  language  this  means,  that  all  the  multi- 
farious and  complicated  activities  of  man  are  comprehen- 

15  sible  under  three  categories.  Either  they  are  immediately 
directed  towards  the  maintenance  and  development  of  the 
body,  or  they  effect  transitory  changes  in  the  relative  posi- 
tions of  parts  of  the  body,  or  they  tend  towards  the  contin- 
uance of  the  species.     Even  those  manifestions  of  intellect, 

20  of  feeling,  and  of  will,  which  we  rightly  name  the  higher 
faculties,  are  not  excluded  from  this  classification,  inas,. 
much  as  to  every  one  but  the  subject  of  them,  they  are 
known  only  as  transitory  changes  in  the  relative  positions  of 
parts  of  the  body.     Speech,  gesture,  and  every  other  form  of 

25  human  action  are,  in  the  long  run,  resolvable  into  muscular 
contraction,  and  muscular  contraction  is  but  a  transitory 
change  in  the  relative  positions  of  the  parts  of  a  muscle. 
But  the  scheme  which  is  large  enough  to  embrace  the  activi- 
ties of  the  highest  form  of  life,  covers  all  those  of  the  lower 

30  creatures.  The  lowest  plant,  or  animalcule,  feeds,  grows, 
and  reproduces  its  kind.     In  addition,  all  animals  manifest 

^  Why  does  the  populace  rush  so  and  make  clamor?  It  wishes  to 
eat,  bring  forth  children,  and  feed  these  as  well  as  it  ma}'.  .  .  .  No  maa 
can  do  better,  strive  how  he  will. 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  243 

those  transitory  changes  of  form  which  we  class  under 
irritability  and  contractility;  and  it  is  morel  than  probable 
that  when  the  vegetable  world  is  thoroughly  explored,  we 
shall  find  all  plants  in  possession  of  the  same  powers,  at  one 
time  or  other  of  their  existence.  5 

I  am  not  now  alluding  to  such  phenomena,  at  once  rare 
and  conspicuous,  as  those  exhibited  by  the  leaflets  of  the 
sensitive  plants,  or  the  stamens  of  the  barberry,  but  to  much 
more  widely  spread,  and  at  the  same  time,  more  subtle  and 
hidden,  manifestions  of  vegetable  contractility.  You  areio 
doubtless  aware  that  the  common  nettle  owes  its  stinging 
property  to  the  innumerable  stiff  and  needle-Hke,  though 
exquisitely  delicate,  hairs  which  cover  its  surface.  Each 
stinging-needle  tapers  from  a  broad  base  to  a  slender  sum- 
mit, which,  though  rounded  at  the  end,  is  of  such  micro- 15 
scopic  fineness  that  it  readily  penetrates,  and  breaks  off  in, 
the  skin.  The  whole  hair  consists  of  a  very  delicate  outer 
case  of  wood,  closely  applied  to  the  inner  surface  of  which 
is  a  layer  of  semi-fluid  matter,  full  of  innumerable  granules 
of  extreme  minuteness.  This  semi-fluid  lining  is  protoplasm,  20 
which  thus  constitutes  a  kind  of  bag,  full  of  a  limpid  Uquid, 
and  roughly  corresponding  in  form  with  the  interior  of  the 
hair  which  it  fills.  When  viewed  with  a  sufficiently  high 
magnifying  power,  the  protoplasmic  layer  of  the  nettle  hair 
is  seen  to  be  in  a  condition  of  unceasing  activity.  Local  25 
contractions  of  the  whole  thickness  of  its  substance  pass 
slowly  and  gradually  from  point  to  point,  and  give  rise  to 
the  appearance  of  progressive  waves,  just  as  the  bending 
of  successive  stalks  of  corn  by  a  breeze  produces  the  apparent 
billows  of  a  corn-field.  30 

But,  in  addition  to  these  movements,  and  independently 
of  them,  the  granules  are  driven,  in  relatively  rapid  streams, 
through  channels  in  the  [)rotoplasm  which  seem  to  have  a 
considerable  amount  of  persistence.  Most  commonly^  the 
currents  in  adjacent  parts  of  the  protoplasm  take  similar  35 
directions;  and,  thus,  there  is  a  general  stream  up  one  side 
of  the  hair  and  down  the  other.     But  this  does  not  prevent 


244        THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

the  existence  of  partial  currents  which  take  diflferent  routes; 
and  sometimes  trains  of  granules  may  be  seen  coursing 
swiftly  in  opposite  directions  within  a  twenty-thousandth 
of  an  inch  of  one  another;  while,  occasionally,  opposite 
5  streams  come  into  direct  collision,  and,  after  a  longer  or 
shorter  struggle,  one  predominates.  The  cause  of  these 
currents  seems  to  lie  in  contractions  of  the  protoplasm  which 
bounds  the  channels  in  which  they  flow,  but  which  are  so 
minute  that  the  best  microscopes  show  only  their  effects, 

lo  and  not  themselves. 

The  spectacle  afforded  by  the  wonderful  energies  prisoned 
within  the  compass  of  the  microscopic  hair  of  a  plant,  which 
we  commonly  regard  as  a  merely  passive  organism,  is  not 
easily  forgotten  by  one  who  has  watched  its  display,  con- 

15  tinued  hour  after  hour,  without  pause  or  sign  of  weakening. 
The  possible  complexity  of  many  other  organic  forms,  seem- 
ingly as  simple  as  the  protoplasm  of  the  nettle,  dawns  upon 
one;  and  the  comparison  of  such  a  protoplasm  to  a  body 
with  an  internal  circulation,  which  has  been  put  forward 

20  by  an  eminent  physiologist,  loses  much  of  its  startling 
character.  Currents  similar  to  those  of  the  hairs  of  the  nettle 
have  been  observed  in  a  great  multitude  of  very  different 
plants,  and  weighty  authorities  have  suggested  that  they 
probably  occur,  in  more  or  less  perfection,  in  all  young  vege- 

25  table  cells.  If  such  be  the  case,  the  wonderful  noonday 
silence  of  a  tropical  forest  is,  after  all,  due  only  to  the  dull- 
ness of  our  hearing;  and  could  our  ears  catch  the  murmur 
of  these  tiny  Maelstroms,  as  they  whirl  in  the  innumerable 
myriads  of  living  cells  which  constitute  each  tree,  we  should 

30  be  stunned,  as  with  the  roar  of  a  great  city. 

Among  the  lower  plants,  it  is  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception,  that  contractility  should  be  still  more  openly 
manifested  at  some  periods  of  their  existence.  The  pro- 
toplasm of  Algcs  and  Fungi  becomes,  under  many  circum- 

35  stances,  partially,  or  completely,  freed  from  its  woody  case, 
and  exhibits  mo\'craents  of  its  whole  mass,  or  is  propelled 
by  the  contractility  of  one,  or  more,  hair-like  prolongations 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  245 

of  its  body,  which  are  called  vibratile  cilia.  And,  so  far  as 
the  conditions  of  the  manifestation  of  the  phenomena  of 
contractility  have  yet  been  studied,  they  are  the  same  for 
the  plant  as  for  the  animal.  Heat  and  electric  shocks 
influence  both,  and  in  the  same  way,  though  it  may  be  in  s 
different  degrees.  It  is  by  no  means  my  intention  to  suggest 
that  theie  is  no  difference  in  faculty  between  the  lowest 
plant  and  the  highest,  or  between  plants  and  animals. 
But  the  difference  between  the  powers  of  the  lowest  plant, 
or  animal,  and  those  of  the  highest,  is  one  of  degree,  not  lo 
of  kind,  and  depends,  as  Milne-Edwards  long  ago  so  well 
pointed  out,  upon  the  extent  to  which  the  principle  of  the 
division  of  labour  is  carried  out  in  the  living  economy. 
In  the  lowest  organism  all  parts  are  competent  to  perform 
all  functions,  and  one  and  the  same  portion  of  protoplasm  15 
may  successfully  take  on  the  function  of  feeding,  moving, 
or  reproducing  apparatus.  In  the  highest,  on  the  contrary, 
a  great  number  of  parts  combine  to  perform  each  function, 
each  part  doing  its  allotted  share  of  the  work  with  great 
accuracy  and  efficiency,  but  being  useless  for  any  other  20 
purpose. 

On  the  other  hand,  notwithstanding  all  the  fundamental 
resemblances  which  exist  between  the  powers  of  the  proto- 
plasm in  plants  and  in  animals,  they  present  a  striking 
difference  (to  which  I  shall  advert  more  at  length  presently),  25 
in  the  fact  that  plants  can  manufacture  fresh  protoplasm 
out  of  mineral  compounds,  whereas  animals  are  obliged  to 
procure  it  ready  made,  and  hence,  in  the  long  run,  depend 
upon  plants.  Upon  what  condition  this  difference  in  the 
[)owers  of  the  two  great  divisions  of  the  \vorld  of  life  depends, 30 
nothing  is  at  present  known. 

With  such  qualifications  as  arise  out  of  the  last-mentioned 
fact,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  acts  of  all  living  things  are 
fundamentally  one.  Is  any  such  unity  predicable  of  their 
forms?  Let  us  seek  in  easily  verified  facts  for  a  reply  to  35 
this  question.  If  a  drop  of  Ijlood  be  drawn  by  pricking  one's 
finger,  and  viewed  with  proper  precautions,  and  under  a 


246  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

sufficiently  high  microscopic  power,  there  will  be  seen, 
among  the  innumerable  multitude  of  little,  circular,  dis- 
coidal  bodies,  or  corpuscles,  which  float  in  it  and  give  it  its 
colour,  a  comparatively  small  number  of  colourless  corpus- 
S  cles,  of  somewhat  larger  size  and  very  irregular  shape.  If 
the  drop  of  blood  be  kept  at  the  temperature  of  the  body, 
these  colourless  corpuscles  will  be  seen  to  exhibit  a  marvel- 
lous activity,  changing  their  forms  with  great  rapidity, 
drawing  in  and  thrusting  out  prolongations  of  their  sub- 

lo  stance,  and  creeping  about  as  if  they  were  independent 
organisms. 

The  substance  which  is  thus  active  is  a  mass  of  proto- 
plasm, and  its  activity  differs  in  detail,  rather  than  in  prin- 
ciple, from  that  of  the  protoplasm  of  the  nettle.     Under 

IS  sundry  circumstances  the  corpuscle  dies  and  becomes  dis- 
tended into  a  round  mass,  in  the  midst  of  which  is  seen  a 
smaller  spherical  body,  which  existed,  but  was  more  or  less 
hidden,  in  the  living  corpuscle,  and  is  called  its  nucleus. 
Corpuscles  of  essentially  similar  structure  are  to  be  found 

20  in  the  skin,  in  the  lining  of  the  mouth,  and  scattered  through 
the  whole  framework  of  the  body.  Nay,  more:  in  the  earliest 
condition  of  the  human  organism,  in  that  state  in  which  it 
has  but  just  become  distinguishable  from  tjie  egg  in  which 
it  arises,  it  is  nothing  but  an  aggregation  of  such  corpuscles, 

25  and  every  organ  of  the  body  was,  once,  no  more  than  such 
an  aggregation. 

Thus  a  nucleated  mass  of  protoplasm  turns  out  to  be 
what  may  be  termed  the  structural  unit  of  the  human  body. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  body,  in  its  earhest  state,  is  a  mere 

30 multiple  of  such  units;  and  in  its  perfect  condition,  it  is  a 
multiple  of  such  units,  variously  modified. 

But  does  the  formula  which  expresses  the  essential  struc- 
tural character  of  the  highest  animal  cover  all  the  rest,  as 
the  statement  of  its  powers  and  faculties  covered  that  of 

35  all  others?  Very  nearly.  Beast  and  fowl,  reptile  and  fish, 
mollusk,  worm,  and  polype,  are  all  composed  of  struc- 
tural units  of  the  same  character,  namely,  masses  of  proto- 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  247 

plasm  with  a  nucleus.  There  are  sundry  very  low  ani- 
mals, each  of  which,  structurally,  is  a  mere  colourless 
blood-corpuscle,  leading  an  independent  life.  But,  at  the 
very  bottom  of  the  animal  scale,  even  this  simphcity 
becomes  simplified,  and  all  the  phenomena  of  life  are  mani-  s 
fested  by  a  particle  of  protoplasm  without  a  nucleus.  Nor 
are  such  organisms  insignificant  by  reason  of  their  want  of 
complexity.  It  is  a  fair  question  whether  the  protoplasm 
of  those  simplest  forms  of  hfe,  which  people  an  immense 
extent  of  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  would  not  outweigh  that  of  lo 
all  the  higher  living  beings  which  inhabit  the  land  put 
together.  And  in  ancient  times,  no  less  than  at  the  present 
day,  such  living  beings  as  these  have  been  the  greatest  of 
rock  builders. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  animal  world  is  no  less  true  15 
of  plants.     Imbedded  in  the  protoplasm  at  the  broad,  or 
attached,   end  of  the  nettle  hair,   there  lies  a  spheroidal 
nucleus.     Careful    examination    further    proves    that    the 
whole  substance  of  the  nettle  is  made  up  of  a  repetition  of 
such  masses  of  nucleated  protoplasm,  each  contained  in  a  20 
wooden  case,  which  is  modified  in  form,  sometimes  into 
a  woody  fibre,  sometimes  into  a  duct  or  spiral  vessel,  some- 
times into  a  pollen  grain,  or  an  ovule.     Traced  back  to  its 
earhest  state,  the  nettle  arises  as  the  man  does,  in  a  particle 
of  nucleated  protoplasm.     And  in  the  lowest  plants,  as  in  25 
the  lowest  animals,  a  single  mass  of  such  protoplasm  may 
constitute  the  whole  plant,  or  the  protoplasm  may  e.xist 
without  a  nucleus. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  may  well  be  asked,  how 
is  one  mass  of  non-nucleated  protoplasm  to  be  distinguished  30 
from    another?     why    call    one    "  plant  "    and    the    other 
*'  animal  "? 

The  only  reply  is  that,  so  far  as  form  is  concerned,  plants 
and  animals  are  not  separable,  and  that,  in  many  cases,  it 
is  a  mere  matter  of  convention  whether  we  call  a  given  35 
organism  an  animal  or  a  plant.     There  is  a  living  body  called 
/Ethalium   septicmn,    which   appears   upon    decaying   vege- 


248         THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

table  substances,  and,  in  one  of  its  forms,  is  common  upon 
the  surfaces  of  tan-pits.  In  this  condition  it  is,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  a  fungus,  and  formerly  was  always  regarded 
as  such;  but  the  remarkable  investigations  of  De  Bary  have 
S  shown  that,  in  another  condition,  the  ^thalium  is  an  ac- 
tively locomotive  creature,  and  takes  in  solid  matters, 
upon  which,  apparently,  it  feeds,  thus  exhibiting  the  most 
characteristic  feature  of  animaUty.  Is  this  a  plant;  or  is 
it  an  animal?    Is  it  both;    or  is  it  neither?    Some  decide  in 

lo  favour  of  the  last  supposition,  and  establish  an  intermediate 
kingdom,  a  sort  of  biological  No  Man's  Land  for  all  these 
questionable  forms.  But,  as  it  is  admittedly  impossible 
to  draw  any  distinct  boundary  line  between  this  no  man's 
land  and  the  vegetable  world  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  animal 

15  on  the  other,  it  appears  to  me  that  this  proceeding  merely 
doubles  the  difBculty  which,  before,  was  single. 

Protoplasm,  simple  or  nucleated,  is  the  formal  basis  of 
alUife.  It  is  the  clay  of  the  potter:  which,  bake  it  and  paint 
it  as  he  will,  remains  clay,  separated  by  artifice,  and  not 

20  by  nature,  from  the  commonest  brick  or  sun-dried  clod. 

Thus  it  becomes  clear  that  all  living  powers  are  cognate, 
and  that  all  living  forms  are  fundamentally  of  one  character. 
The  researches  of  the  chemist  have  revealed  a  no  less  strik- 
ing uniformity  of  material  composition  in  living  matter. 

25  In  perfect  strictness,  it  is  true  that  chemical  investiga- 
tion can  tell  us  Uttle  or  nothing,  directly,  of  the  composi- 
tion of  living  matter,  inasmuch  as  such  matter  must  needs 
die  in  the  act  of  analysis, — and  upon  this  very  obvious 
ground,  objections,  which  I  confess  seem  to  me  to  be  some- 

30  what  frivolous,  have  been  raised  to  the  drawing  of  any 
conclusions  whatever  respecting  the  composition  of  actually 
living  matter,  from  that  of  the  dead  matter  of  Hfe,  which 
alone  is  accessible  to  us.  But  objectors  of  this  class  do  not 
seem  to  reflect  that  it  is  also,  in  strictness,  true  that  we 

35  know  nothing  about  the  composition  of  any  body  what- 
ever, as  it  is.  The  statement  that  a  crystal  of  calc-spar 
consists  of  carbonate  of  lime,  is  quite  true,  if  we  only  mean 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  l^ASTS  OF  LIFE  249 

that,  by  appropriate  processes,  it  may  be  resolved  into  car- 
bonic acid  and  quicklime.  If  you  pass  the  same  carbonic 
acid  over  the  very  quicklime  thus  obtained,  you  will  obtain 
carbonate  of  lime  again;  but  it  will  not  be  calc-spar,  nor 
anything  like  it.  Can  it,  therefore,  be  said  that  chemical  5 
analysis  teaches  nothing  about  the  chemical  composition 
of  calc-spar?  Such  a  statement  would  be  absurd;  but  it  is 
hardly  more  so  than  the  talk  one  occasionally  hears  about 
the  uselessncss  of  applying  the  results  of  chemical  analysis 
to  the  living  bodies  which  have  yielded  them.  10 

One  fact,  at  any  rate,  is  out  of  reach  of  such  refinements, 
and  this  is,  that  all  the  forms  of  protoplasm  which  have 
yet  been  examined  contain  the  four  elements,  carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen,  in  very  complex  union, 
and  that  they  behave  similarly  towards  several  reagents.  15 
To  this  complex  combination,  the  nature  of  which  has 
never  been  determined  with  exactness,  the  name  of  Pro- 
tein has  been  applied.  And  if  we  use  this  term  with  such 
caution  as  may  properly  arise  out  of  our  comparative  igno- 
rance of  the  things  for  which  it  stands,  it  may  be  truly  said  20 
that  all  protoplasm  is  proteinaceous,  or,  as  the  white,  or 
albumen,  of  an  egg  is  one  of  the  commonest  examples  of  a 
nearly  pure  proteine  matter,  we  may  say  that  all  living 
matter  is  more  or  less  albuminoid. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  yet  be  safe  to  say  that  all  forms  of  25 
protoplasm   are   affected   by   the   direct   action   of   electric 
shocks;   and  yet  the  number  of  cases  in  which  the  contrac- 
tion of  protoplasm  is  shown  to  be  affected  by  this  agency 
increases  every  day. 

Nor  can  it  be  aflfirmed  with  perfect  confidence,  that  all  30 
forms  of  protoplasm  are  liable  to  undergo  that  peculiar 
coagulation  at  a  temperature  of  4o°-5o°  Centigrade,  which 
has  been  called  "  heat-stiffening,"  though  Kiihne's  beautiful 
researches  have  proved  this  occurrence  to  take  place  in 
so  many  and  such  diverse  living  beings,  that  it  is  hardly  35 
rash  to  expect  that  the  law  holds  good  for  all. 


250  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

Enough  has,  perhaps,  been  said,  to  prove  the  existence  of 
a  general  uniformity  in  the  character  of  the  protoplasm,  or 
physical  basis,  of  life,  in  whatever  group  of  living  beings  it 
may  be  studied.     But  it  will  be  understood  that  this  general 

5  uniformity  by  no  means  excludes  any  amount  of  special 
modifications  of  the  fundamental  substance.  The  mineral, 
carbonate  of  lime,  assumes  an  immense  diversity  of  charac- 
ters, though  no  one  doubts  that,  under  all  these  Protean 
changes,  is  one  and  the  same  thing. 

lo  And  now,  what  is  the  ultimate  fate,  and  what  the  origin, 
of  the  matter  of  life? 

Is  it,  as  some  of  the  older  naturahsts  supposed,  diffused 
throughout  the  universe  in  molecules,  which  are  inde- 
structible and  unchangeable  in  themselves;    but,  in  endless 

IS  transmigration,  unite  in  innumerable  permutations,  into  the 
diversified  forms  of  life  we  know?  Or,  is  the  matter  of  life 
composed  of  ordinary  matter,  differing  from  it  only  in  the 
manner  in  which  its  atoms  are  aggregated?  Is  it  built  up 
of  ordinary  matter,  and  again  resolved  into  ordinary  matter 

20  when  its  work  is  done? 

Modern  science  does  not  hesitate  a  moment  between 
these  alternatives.  Physiology  writes  over  the  portals  of 
life— 

"  Debemur  morti  nos  nostraque,"  ^ 

25  with  a  profounder  meaning  than  the  Roman  poet  attached 
to  that  melancholy  line.  Under  whatever  disguise  it  takes 
refuge,  whether  fungus  or  oak,  worm  or  man,  the  living 
protoplasm  not  only  ultimately  dies  and  is  resolved  into 
its  mineral  and  lifeless  constituents,  but  is  always  dying, 

30  and,  strange  as  the  paradox  may  sound,  could  not  live 
unless  it  died. 

In  the  wonderful  story  of  the  Peau  de  Chagrin,  the  hero 
becomes  possessed  of  a  magical  wild  ass'  skin,  which  yields 
him  the  means  of  gratifying  all  his  wishes.     But  its  sur- 

35  face  represents  the  duration  of  the  proprietor's  life;    and 
^  We  and  ours  must  die. 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  251 

for  every  satisfied  desire  the  skin  shrinks  in  proportion  to 
the  intensity  of  fruition,  until  at  length  life  and  the  last 
handbreath  of  the  peau  de  chagrin,  disappear  with  the 
gratification  of  a  last  wish. 

Balzac's  studies  had  led  him  over  a  wide  range  of  thought  5 
and  speculation,  and  his  shadowing  forth  of  physiological 
truth  in  this  strange  story  may  have  been  intentional.  At 
any  rate,  the  matter  of  hfe  is  a  veritable  peau  de  chagrin, 
and  for  every  vital  act  it  is  somewhat  the  smaller.  All 
work  implies  waste,  and  the  work  of  life  results,  directly  or  10 
indirectly,  in  the  waste  of  protoplasm. 

Every  word  uttered  by  a  speaker  costs  him  some  physical 
loss;  and,  in  the  strictest  sense,  he  burns  that  others  may 
have  light — so  much  eloquence,  so  much  of  his  body  re- 
solved into  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  urea.  It  is  clear  15 
that  this  process  of  expenditure  cannot  go  on  forever.  But, 
happily,  the  protoplasmic  peau  de  chagrin  differs  from 
Balzac's  in  its  capacity  of  being  repaired,  and  brought 
back  to  its  full  size,  after  every  exertion. 

For  example,  this  present  lecture,  whatever  its  intellect-  20 
ual  worth  to  you,  has  a  certain  physical  value  to  me,  which 
is,   conceivably,   expressible   by   the   number  of  grains   of 
protoplasm   and    other   bodily  substance  wasted  in   main- 
taining my  vital  processes  during  its  delivery.     My  peau  de 
chagrin  will  be  distinctly  smaller  at  the  end  of  the  discourse  25 
than  it  was  at  the  beginning.     By  and  by,  I  shall  probably 
have  recourse  to  the  substance  commonly  called  mutton, 
for  the  purpose  of  stretching  it  back  to  its  original  size. 
Now  this  mutton  was  once  the  living  protoplasm,  more  or 
less  modified,  of  another  animal — a  sheep.     As  I  shall  eat 30 
it,  it  is  the  same  matter  altered,  not  only  by  death,  but  by 
exposure  to  sundry  artificial  operations  in  the  process  of 
cooking. 

But  these  changes,  whatever  be  their  extent,  havp  not 
rendered  it  incompetent  to  resume  its  old  functions  as  mat- 35 
ter  of  life.     A  singular  inward  laboratory,  which  I  possess, 
will  dissolve  a  certain  portion  of  the  modified  protoplasm; 


252  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

the  solution  so  formed  will  pass  into  my  veins;  and  the 
subtle  influences  to  which  it  will  then  be  subjected  will  con- 
vert the  dead  protoplasm  into  living  protoplasm,  and  tran- 
substantiate sheep  into  man. 
5  Nor  is  this  all.  If  digestion  were  a  thing  to  be  trifled 
with,  I  might  sup  upon  lobster,  and  the  matter  of  life  of 
the  crustacean  would  undergo  the  same  wonderful  meta- 
morphosis into  humanity.  And  were  I  to  return  to  my  own 
place  by  sea,  and  undergo  shipwreck,  the  crustacean  might, 

loand  probably  would,  return  the  compUment,  and  demon- 
strate our  common  nature  by  turning  my  protoplasm  into 
living  lobster.  Or,  if  nothing  better  were  to  be  had,  I  might 
supply  my  wants  with  mere  bread,  and  I  should  find  the 
protoplasm  of  the  wheat-plant  to  be  convertible  into  man 

15  with  no  more  trouble  than  that  of  the  sheep,  and  with  far 
less,  I  fancy,  than  that  of  the  lobster. 

Hence  it  appears  to  be  a  matter  of  no  great  moment 
what  animal,  or  what  plant,  I  lay  under  contribution  for 
protoplasm,  and  the  fact  speaks  volumes  for  the  general 

20  identity  of  that  substance  in  all  living  beings.  I  share  this 
catholicity  of  assimilation  with  other  animals,  all  of  which, 
so  far  as  we  know,  could  thrive  equally  well  on  the  proto- 
plasm of  any  of  their  fellows,  or  of  any  plaiTt;  but  here  the 
assimilative  powers  of  the  animal  world  cease.     A  solution 

25  of  smelling-salts  in  water,  with  an  infinitesimal  propor- 
tion of  some  other  sahne  matters,  contains  all  the  elemen- 
tary bodies  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  protoplasm ; 
but,  as  I  need  hardly  say,  a  hogshead  of  that  fluid  would 
not  keep  a  hungry  man  from  starving,  nor  would  it  save 

30  any  animal  whatever  from  a  like  fate.  An  animal  cannot 
make  protoplasm,  but  must  take  it  read3^-made  from  some 
other  animal,  or  some  plant — the  animal's  highest  feat  of 
constructive  chemistry  being  to  convert  dead  protoplasm 
into  that  living  matter  of  life  which  is  appropriate  to  itself. 

35  Therefore,  in  seeking  for  the  origin  of  protoplasm,  we 
must  c\-entually  turn  to  the  vegetable  world.  A  fluid  con- 
taining carbonic  acid,  water,  and  nitrogenous  salts,  which 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  253 

offers  such  a  Barmecide  feast '  to  the  animal,  is  a  table  richly 
spread  to  multitudes  of  plants;  and,  with  a  due  supply  of 
only  such  materials,  many  a  plant  will  not  only  maintain 
itself  in  vigour,  but  grow  and  multiply  until  it  has  increased 
a  million-fold,  or  a  million  million-fold,  the  quantity  of  s 
protoplasm  which  it  originally  possessed;  in  this  way  build- 
ing up  the  matter  of  life,  to  an  indefinite  extent,  from  the 
common  matter  of  the  universe. 

Thus,  the  animal  can  only  raise  the  complex  substance  of 
dead  protoplasm  to  the  higher  power,  as  one  may  say,  ofio 
living  protoplasm;  while  the  plant  can  raise  the  less  complex 
substances — carbonic  acid,  water,  and  nitrogenous  salts — 
to  the  same  stage  of  Uving  protoplasm,  if  not  to  the  same 
level.     But  the  plant  also  has  its  limitations.     Some  of  the 
fungi,  for  example,  appear  to  need  higher  compounds  to  15 
start  with;   and  no  known  plant  can  live  upon  the  uncom- 
pounded  elements  of  protoplasm.     A  plant  supplied  with 
pure  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitrogen,  phosphorus, 
sulphur,  and  the  Hke,  would  as  infallibly  die  as  the  animal 
in  his  bath  of  smelling-salts,  though  it  would  be  surrounded  20 
by  all  the  constituents  of  protoplasm.     Nor,  indeed,  need 
the  process  of  simpHfication  of  vegetable  food  be  carried  so 
far  as  this,  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  limit  of  the  plant's 
thaumaturgy.     Let  water,  carbonic  acid,  and  all  the  other 
needful  constituents  be  supplied  except  nitrogenous  salts,  25 
and  an  ordinary  plant  will  still  be  unable  to  manufacture 
protoplasm. 

Thus  the  matter  of  life,  so  far  as  we  know  it  (and  we  have 
no  right  to  speculate  on  any  other),  breaks  up,  in  conse- 
quence of  that  continual  death  which  is  the  condition  of  its  30 
manifesting  vitality,  into  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  nitrog- 
enous compounds,  which  certainly  possess  no  properties 
but  those  of  ordinary  matter.  And  out  of  these  same  forms 
of  ordinary  matter,  and  from  none  which  are  simpler,  the 

^  In  one  of  the  Arabian  Nights  stories,  a  nobleman  called  Barme- 
cide set  before  a  bcgger  a  number  of  empty  dishes  supposed  to  contain 
a  feast. 


251        THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

vegetable  world  builds  up  all  the  protoplasm  which  keeps 
the  animal  world  a-going.  Plants  are  the  accumulators  of 
the  power  which  animals  distribute  and  disperse. 

But  it  will  be  observed,  that  the  existence  of  the  matter 
Sof  life  depends  on  the  pre-existence  of  certain  compounds; 
namely,  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  certain  nitrogenous 
bodies.  Withdraw  any  one  of  these  three  from  the  world, 
and  all  vital  phenomena  come  to  an  end.  They  are  as 
necessary  to  the  protoplasm  of  the  plant,  as  the  proto- 

lo  plasm  of  the  plant  is  to  that  of  the  animal.  Carbon,  hydro- 
gen, oxygen,  and  nitrogen  are  all  lifeless  bodies.  Of  these, 
carbon  and  oxygen  unite  in  certain  proportions  and  under 
certain  conditions,  to  give  rise  to  carbonic  acid;  hydrogen 
and  oxygen  produce  water;    nitrogen  and  other  elements 

15  give  rise  to  nitrogenous  salts.  These  new  compounds, 
like  the  elementary  bodies  of  which  they  are  composed, 
are  lifeless.  But  when  they  are  brought  together,  under 
certain  conditions,  they  give  rise  to  the  still  more  complex 
body,  protoplasm,  and  this  protoplasm  exhibits  the  phe- 

20  nomena  of  life. 

I  see  no  break  in  this  series  of  steps  in  molecular  compli- 
cation, and  I  am  unable  to  understand  why  the  language 
which  is  applicable  to  any  one  term  of  th?  series  may  not 
be  used  to  any  of  the  others.     We  think  fit  to  call  different 

25  kinds  of  matter  carbon,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  and  nitrogen, 
and  to  speak  of  the  various  powers  and  activities  of  these 
substances  as  the  properties  of  the  matter  of  which  they 
are  composed. 

When  hydrogen  and  oxygen  are  mixed  in  a  certain  pro- 

30  portion,  and  an  electric  spark  is  passed  through  them,  they 
disappear,  and  a  quantity  of  water,  equal  in  weight  to  the 
sum  of  their  weights,  appears  in  their  place.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  parity  between  the  passive  and  active  powers 
of  the  water  and  those  of  the  oxygen  and  hydrogen  which 

35  have  given  rise  to  it.  At  32°  Fahrenheit,  and  far  below  that 
temperature,  oxygen  and  hydrogen  are  elastic  gaseous 
bodies,  whose  particles  tend  to  rush  away  from  one  another 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  255 

with  great  force.  Water,  at  the  same  temperature,  is  a 
strong  though  brittle  soHd,  whose  particles  tend  to  cohere 
into  definite  geometrical  shapes,  and  sometimes  build  up 
frosty  imitations  of  the  most  complex  forms  of  vegetable 
foliage.  S 

Nevertheless  we  call  these,  and  many  other  strange  phe- 
nomena, the  j)roperties  of  the  water,  and  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  believe  that,  in  some  way  or  another,  they  result  from  the 
properties  of  the  component  elements  of  the  water.  We  do 
not  assume  that  a  something  called  "  aquosity  "  entered  into  lo 
and  took  possession  of  the  oxidated  hydrogen  as  soon  as  it 
was  formed,  and  then  guided  the  aqueous  particles  to  their 
places  in  the  facets  of  the  crystal,  or  amongst  the  leaflets  of 
the  hoar-frost.  On  the  contrary,  we  live  in  the  hope  and  in 
the  faith  that,  by  the  advance  of  molecular  physics,  we  shall  15 
by  and  by  be  able  to  see  our  way  as  clearly  from  the  con- 
stituents of  water  to  the  properties  of  water,  as  we  are  now 
able  to  deduce  the  operations  of  a  watch  from  the  form  of  its 
parts  and  the  manner  in  which  they  are  put  together. 

Is  the  case  in  any  way  changed  when  carbonic  acid,  water,  20 
and  nitrogenous  salts  disappear,  and  in  their  place,  under 
the  influence  of  pre-existing  living  protoplasm,  an  equivalent 
weight  of  the  matter  of  life  makes  its  appearance? 

It  is  true  that  there  is  no  sort  of  parity  between  the  prop- 
erties of  the  components  and  the  properties  of  the  resultant,  25 
but  neither  was  there  in  the  case  of  the  water.  It  is  also  true 
that  what  I  have  spoken  of  as  the  influence  of  pre-existing 
living  matter  is  something  quite  unintelligible;  but  does 
anybody  quite  comprehend  the  modus  operandi  ^  of  an 
electric  spark,  which  traverses  a  mixture  of  oxygen  and  3c 
hydrogen? 

What  justification  is  there,  then,  for  the  assumption  of  the 
existence  in  the  living  matter  of  a  something  which  has  no 
rcjDresentative,  or  correlati\'e,  in  the  not  living  matter  which 
gave  rise  to  it?  What  better  philosophical  status  has 35 
"  vitality  "  than  "  aquosity  "?  And  why  should  "  vitahty  " 
^  Mode  of  working. 


256  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

hope  for  a  better  fate  than  the  other  "  itys  "  which  have 
disappeared  since  Martiniis  Scriblerus  accounted  for  the 
operation  of  the  meat-jack  by  its  inherent  "  meat-roasting 
quality,"  and  scorned  the  "  materialism  "  of  those  who 
5  explained  the  turning  of  the  spit  l^y  a  certain  mechanism 
worked  by  the  draught  of  the  chimney? 

If  scientific  language  is  to  possess  a  definite  and  constant 
signification  whenever  it  is  employed,  it  seems  to  me  that 
we  are  logically  bound  to  apply  to  the  protoplasm,  or  physi- 

local  basis  of  life,  the  same  conceptions  as  those  which  are 
held  to  be  legitimate  elsewhere.  If  the  phenomena  exhib- 
ited by  water  are  its  properties,  so  are  those  presented  by 
protoplasm,  living  or  dead,  its  properties. 

If  the  properties  of  water  may  be  properly  said  to  result 

IS  from  the  nature  and  disposition  of  its  component  molecules, 
I  can  find  no  intelligible  ground  for  refusing  to  say  that  the 
properties  of  protoplasm  result  from  the  nature  and  dis- 
position of  its  molecules. 

But  I  bid  you  beware  that,  in  accepting  these  conclusions, 

20  you  are  placing  your  feet  on  the  first  rung  of  a  ladder  which, 
in  most  people's  estimation,  is  the  reverse  of  Jacob's  and 
leads  to  the  antipodes  of  heaven.  It  may  seem  a  small 
thing  to  admit  that  the  dull  vital  actions  of  a  fungus,  or  a 
foraminifer,  are  the  properties  of  their  protoplasm,  and  are 

25  the  direct  results  of  the  nature  of  the  matter  of  which  they 
are  composed.  But  if,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  prove  to 
you,  their  protoplasm  is  essentially  identical  with,  and  most 
readily  converted  into,  that  of  any  animal,  I  can  discover 
no  logical  halting-place  between  the  admission  that  such  is 

30  the  case,  and  the  further  concession  that  all  vital  action  may, 
with  equal  propriety,  be  said  to  be  the  result  of  the  molec- 
ular forces  of  the  protoplasm  which  displays  it.  And  if  so, 
it  must  be  true,  in  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same  extent, 
that  the  thoughts  to  which  I  am  now  giving  utterance,  and 

35  your  thoughts  regarding  them,  are  the  expression  of  molec- 
ular changes  in  that  matter  of  life  which  is  the  source  of 
our  other  vital  phenomena, 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  257 

Past  experience  leads  me  to  be  tolerably  certain  that,  when 
the  propositions  I  have  just  placed  before  you  are  accessible 
to  public  comment  and  criticism,  they  will  be  condemned  by 
many  zealous  persons,  and  perhaps  by  some  few  of  the  wise 
and  thoughtful.  I  should  not  wonder  if  "  gross  and  brutal  s 
materialism  "  were  the  mildest  phrase  appHed  to  them  in 
certain  quarters.  And,  most  undoubtedly,  the  terms  of  the 
propositions  are  distinctly  materialistic.  Nevertheless  two 
things  are  certain:  the  one,  that  I  hold  the  statements  to  be 
substantially  true;  the  other,  that  I,  individually,  am  noio 
materialist,  but,  on  the  contrary,  believe  materialism  to 
involve  grave  philosophical  error. 

This  union  of  materialistic  terminology  with  the  repu- 
diation of  materiaUstic  philosophy  I  share  with  some  of  the 
most  thoughtful  men  with  whom  I  am  acquainted.  And,  15 
when  I  first  undertook  to  deliver  the  present  discourse,  it 
appeared  to  me  to  be  a  fitting  opportunity  to  explain  how 
such  a  union  is  not  only  consistent  with,  but  necessitated 
by,  sound  logic.  I  purposed  to  lead  you  through  the  terri- 
tory of  vital  phenomena  to  the  materialistic  slough  in  which  20 
you  find  yourselves  now  plunged,  and  then  to  point  out  to  you 
the  sole  path  by  which,  in  my  judgment,  extrication  is 
possible. 

Let  us  suppose  that  knowledge  is  absolute,  and  not  relative, 
and   therefore,   that   our   conception   of   matter   represents  25 
that  which  it  really  is.     Let  us  suppose,  further,  that  we  do 
know  more  of  cause  and  effect  than  a  certain  definite  order 
of  succession  among  facts,  and  that  we  have  a  knowledge  of 
the  necessity  of  that  succession — and  hence,  of  necessary  laws 
— and  I,  for  my  part,  do  not  see  what  escape  there  is  from  30 
utter  materiahsm   and   necessarianism.     For  it  is  obvious 
that  our  knowledge  of  what  we  call  the  material  world  is, 
to  begin  with,  at  least  as  certain  and  definite  as  that  of  the 
spiritual  world,  and  that  our  acquaintance  with  law  is  of  as 
old  a  date  as  our  knowledge  of  spontaneity.     Further,  1 35 
take  it  to  be  demonstrable  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  to 


258        THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

prove  that  anything  whatever  may  not  be  the  efifect  of  a 
material  and  necessary  cause,  and  that  human  logic  is 
equally  incompetent  to  prove  that  any  act  is  really  sponta- 
neous. A  really  spontaneous  act  is  one  which,  by  the 
5  assumption,  has  no  cause;  and  the  attempt  to  prove  such  a 
negative  as  this  is,  on  the  face  of  the  matter,  absurd.  And 
while  it  is  thus  a  philosophical  impossibihty  to  demonstrate 
that  any  given  phenomenon  is  not  the  effect  of  a  material 
cause,  any  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  history  of  sci- 

loence  will  admit,  that  its  progress  has,  in  all  ages,  meant, 
and  now,  more  than  ever,  means,  the  extension  of  the  prov- 
ince of  what  we  call  matter  and  causation,  and  the  con- 
comitant gradual  banishment  from  all  regions  of  human 
thought  of  what  we  call  spirit  and  spontaneity. 

15  I  have  endeavoured,  in  the  first  part  of  this  discourse,  to 
give  you  a  conception  of  the  direction  towards  which  modern 
physiology  is  tending;  and  I  ask  you,  what  is  the  difference 
between  the  conception  of  life  as  the  product  of  a  certain 
disposition  of  material  molecules,  and  the  old  notion  of  an 

20  Archaeus  ^  governing  and  directing  blind  matter  within  each 
living  body,  except  this — that  here,  as  elsewhere,  matter 
and  law  have  devoured  spirit  and  spontaneity?  And  as 
surely  as  every  future  grows  out  of  past  arxl  present,  so  will 
the  physiology  of  the  future  gradually  extend  the  realm  of 

25  matter  and  law  until  it  is  co-extensive  with  knowledge,  with 
feeling,  and  with  action. 

The  consciousness  of  this  great  truth  weighs  like  a  night- 
mare, I  believe,  upon  many  of  the  best  minds  of  these  days. 
They  watch  what  they  conceive  to  be  the  progress  of  mate- 

3orialism,  in  such  fear  and  powerless  anger  as  a  savage  feels 
when,  during  an  eclipse,  the  great  shadow  creeps  over  the 
face  of  the  sun.  The  advancing  tide  of  matter  threatens  to 
drown  their  souls;  the  tightening  grasp  of  law  impedes  their 
freedom;    they  are  alarmed  lest  man's  moral  nature  be  de- 

35  based  by  the  increase  of  his  wisdom. 

^  Archaeus:  a  spirit,  having  essentially  the  same  form  as  the  body 
within  which  it  resided. 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  259 

If  the  "  New  Philosophy  "  be  worthy  of  the  reprobation 
with  which  it  is  visited,  I  confess  their  fears  seem  to  me  to 
be  well  founded.  While,  on  the  contrary,  could  David 
Hume  be  consulted,  I  think  he  would  smile  at  their  perplex- 
ities, and  chide  them  for  doing  even  as  the  heathen,  and  s 
falling  down  in  terror  before  the  hideous  idols  their  own 
hands  have  raised. 

For,  after  all,  what  do  we  know  of  this  terrible  "  matter," 
except  as  a  name  for  the  unknown  and  hypothetical  cause 
of  states  of  our  own  consciousness?  And  what  do  we  know  lo 
of  that  "  spirit  "  over  whose  threatened  extinction  by  matter 
a  great  lamentation  is  arising,  like  that  which  was  heard  at 
the  death  of  Pan,  except  that  it  is  also  a  name  for  an  un- 
known and  hypothetical  cause,  or  condition,  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness? In  other  words,  matter  and  spirit  are  but  names  15 
for  the  imaginary  substrata  of  groups  of  natural  phenomena. 

And  what  is  the  dire  necessity  and  "  iron  "  law  under 
which  men  groan?  Truly,  most  gratuitously  invented 
bugbears.  I  suppose  if  there  be  an  "  iron  "  law,  it  is  that  of 
gravitation;  and  if  there  be  a  physical  necessity,  it  is  that  a  20 
stone,  unsupported,  must  fall  to  the  ground.  But  what  is 
all  we  really  know,  and  can  know,  about  the  latter  phe- 
nomenon? Simply,  that,  in  all  human  experience,  stones  have 
fallen  to  the  ground  under  these  conditions;  that  we  have 
not  the  smallest  reason  for  believing  that  any  stone  so  cir-  25 
cumstanced  will  not  fall  to  the  ground;  and  that  we  have, 
on  the  contrary,  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  will  so  fall. 
It  is  very  convenient  to  indicate  that  all  the  conditions 
of  behef  have  been  fulfilled  in  this  case,  by  calling  the  state- 
ment that  unsupported  stones  will  fall  to  the  ground,"  a  30 
law  of  Nature."  But  when,  as  commonly  happens,  we 
change  wiU  into  must,  we  introduce  an  idea  of  necessity 
which  most  assuredly  does  not  He  in  the  observed  facts, 
and  has  no  warranty  that  I  can  discover  elsewhere.  For 
my  part,  I  utterly  repudiate  and  anathematise  the  intruder.  35 
Fact  I  know;  and  Law  I  know;  but  what  is  this  Necessity 
save  an  empty  shadow  of  my  own  mind's  throwing? 


260  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

But,  if  it  is  certain  that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  either  matter  or  spirit,  and  that  the  notion  of 
necessity  is  something  illegitimately  thrust  into  the  per- 
fectly legitimate  conception  oMaw,  the  materialistic  position 
Sthat  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  matter,  force,  and 
necessity,  is  as  utterly  devoid  of  justification  as  the  most 
baseless  of  theological  dogmas.  The  fundamental  doctrines 
of  materialism,  like  those  of  spiritualism,  and  most  other 
"  isms,"  He  outside  "  the  limits  of  philosophical  inquiry," 

loand  David  Hume's  great  service  to  humanity  is  his  irre- 
fragable demonstration  of  what  these  limits  are.  Hume 
called  himself  a  sceptic,  and  therefore  others  cannot  be  blamed 
if  they  apply  the  same  title  to  him;  but  that  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  the  name,  with  its  existing  implications,  does 

IS  him  gross  injustice. 

If  a  man  asks  me  what  the  politics  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  moon  are,  and  I  reply  that  I  do  not  know;  that  neither 
I,  nor  any  one  else,  has  any  means  of  knowing;  and  that, 
under  these  circumstances,  I  decHne  to  trouble  myself  about 

20  the  subject  at  all;  I  do  not  think  he  has  any  right  to  call  me 
a  sceptic.  On  the  contrary,  in  replying  thus,  I  conceive 
that  I  am  simply  honest  and  truthful,  and  show  a  proper 
regard  for  the  economy  of  time.  So  Hume's  strong  and 
subtle  intellect  takes  up  a  great  many  problems  about  which 

25  we  are  naturally  curious,  and  shows  us  that  they  are  essen- 
tially questions  of  lunar  poHtics,  in  their  essence  incapable 
of  being  answered,  and  therefore  not  worth  the  attention  of 
men  who  have  work  to  do  in  the  world.  And  he  thus  ends 
one  of  his  essays: — 

30  "  If  we  take  in  hand  any  volume  of  Divinity,  or  school  metaphysics, 
for  instance,  let  us  ask,  Does  it  contain  any  abstract  reasoning  concern- 
ing quantity  or  number?  No.  Does  it  contain  any  experimental  reason- 
ing concerning  matter  of  fact  and  existence?  No.  Commit  it  then  to 
the  flames;    for  it  can  contain  nothing  but  sophistry  and  illusion."  ^ 

^  Hume's  Essay  "  Of  the  Academical  or  Sceptical  Philosophy,"  in 
the  Inquiry  concerning  the  Human  Understanding. — [Many  critics  of 
this  passage  seem   to  forget  that   the  subject-matter  of   Ethics  and 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE  261 

Permit  me  to  enforce  this  most  wise  advice.  Why  trouble 
ourselves  about  matters  of  which,  however  important  they 
may  be,  we  do  know  nothing,  and  can  know  nothing?  We 
live  in  a  world  which  is  full  of  misery  and  ignorance,  and  the 
plain  duty  of  each  and  all  of  us  is  to  try  to  make  the  little  5 
corner  he  can  influence  somewhat  less  miserable  and  some- 
what less  ignorant  than  it  was  before  he  entered  it.  To  do 
this  effectually  it  is  necessary  to  be  fully  possessed  of  only 
two  beliefs:  the  first,  that  the  order  of  Nature  is  ascertain- 
able by  our  faculties  to  an  extent  which  is  practically  unlim- 10 
ited;  the  second,  that  our  volition  ^  counts  for  something 
as  a  condition  of  the  course  of  events. 

Each  of  these  beliefs  can  be  verified  experimentally,  as 
often  as  we  like  to  try.  Each,  therefore,  stands  upon  the 
strongest  foundation  upon  which  any  beUef  can  rest,  and  15 
forms  one  of  our  highest  truths.  If  we  find  that  the  ascer- 
tainment of  the  order  of  nature  is  facilitated  by  using  one 
terminology,  or  one  set  of  symbols,  rather  than  another, 
it  is  our  clear  duty  to  use  the  former;  and  no  harm  can 
accrue,  so  long  as  we  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  dealing  merely  20 
with  terms  and  symbols. 

In  itself  it  is  of  little  moment  whether  we  express  the 
phenomena  of  matter  in  terms  of  spirit;  or  the  phenomena 
of  spirit  in  terms  of  matter:  matter  may  be  regarded  as  a 
form  of  thought,  thought  may  be  regarded  as  a  property  of  25 
matter — each  statement  has  a  certain  relative  truth.  But 
with  a  view  to  the  progress  of  science,  the  materialistic  ter- 
minology is  in  every  way  to  be  preferred.  For  it  connects 
thought  with  the  other  phenomena  of  the  universe,  and 
suggests  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  those  physical  conditions,  30 
or  concomitants  of  thought,  which  are  more  or  less  accessible 
to  us,  and  a  knowledge  of  which  may,  in  future,  help  us  to 
exercise  the  same  kind  of  control  over  the  world  of  thought 

/Esthetics  consists  of  matters  of  fact  and  existence. — 1892.] — Author's 
note. 

'  Or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  the  physical  state  of  which  voHtion 
is  the  expression. — 1S92. — Author's  note. 


262  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY 

as  we  already  possess  in  respect  of  the  material  world; 
whereas,  the  alternative,  or  spiritualistic,  terminology  is 
utterly  barren,  and  leads  to  nothing  but  obscurity  and  con- 
fusion of  ideas. 

5  Thus  there  can  be  little  doubt,  that  the  further  science 
advances,  the  more  extensively  and  consistently  will  all  the 
phenomena  of  Nature  be  represented  by  materialistic  for- 
mulae and  symbols. 

But  the  man  of  science,  who,  forgetting  the  limits  of  philo- 

losophical  inquiry,  slides  from  these  formulae  and  symbols 
into  what  is  commonly  understood  by  materialism,  seems  to 
me  to  place  himself  on  a  level  with  the  mathematician 
who  should  mistake  the  ar's  and  ^''s  with  which  he  works  his 
problems,  for  real  entities — and  with  this  further  disadvan- 

15  tage,  as  compared  with  the  mathematician,  that  the  blunders 
of  the  latter  are  of  no  practical  consequence,  while  the  errors 
of  systematic  materialism  may  paralyse  the  energies  and 
destroy  the  beauty  of  a  hfe. 


COMPARISON   OF  THE   MENTAL   POWERS   OF 
MAN  AND  THE    LOWER  ANIMALS  ' 

Charles  Darwin 

My  object  in  this  chapter  is  to  show  that  there  is  no 
fundamental  difference  between  man  and  the  higher  mammals 
in  their  mental  faculties.  Each  division  of  the  subject 
might  have  been  extended  into  a  separate  essay,  but  must 
here  be  treated  briefly.  As  no  classification  of  the  mental  5 
powers  has  been  universally  accepted,  I  shall  arrange  my 
remarks  in  the  order  most  convenient  for  my  purpose;  and 
will  select  those  facts  which  have  struck  me  most,  with  the 
hope  that  they  may  produce  some  effect  on  the  reader. 

As  man  possesses  the  same  senses  as  the  lower  animals,  10 
liis  fundamental  intuitions  must  be  the  same.  Man  has 
also  some  few  instinct?  in  comrnoii,  as  that  of  self-preserva- 
tion, sexual  love,  the  love  of  the  mother  for  her  new-born 
offspring,  the  desire  possessed  by  the  latter  to  suck,  and  so 
forth.  But  man,  perhaps,  has  somewhat  fewer  instincts  15 
than  those  possessed  by  the  animals  which  come  next  to 
him  in  the  series.  The  orang  in  the  Eastern  islands  and  the 
chimpanzee  in  Africa  build  platforms  on  which  they  sleep; 
and  as  both  species  follow  the  same  habit,  it  might  be 
argued  that  this  was  due  to  instinct,  but  we  cannot  feel  20 
sure  that  it  is  not  the  result  of  both  animals  having  similar 
wants  and  possessing  similar  powers  of  reasoning.  These 
apes,  as  we  may  assume,  avoid  the  many  poisonous  fruits 
of  the  tropics,  and  man  has  no  such  knowledge;  but  as 
our  domestic  animals,  when  taken  to  foreign  lands,  and  when  25 

^  From  Chapter  III  of  "The  Descent  of  Man,"  1871.     All  except 
three  of  the  author's  foot-notes  have  been  omitted. 

263 


264  CHARLES  DARWIN 

first  turned  out  in  the  spring,  often  eat  poisonous  herbs, 
which  they  afterward  avoid,  we  cannot  feel  sure  that  the 
apes  do  not  learn  from  their  own  experience  or  from  that 
of  their  parents  what  fruits  to  select.  It  is,  however,  cer- 
5  tain,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  that  apes  have  an  instinctive 
dread  of  serpents,  and  probably  of  other  dangerous  animals. 
The  fewness  and  the  comparative  simplicity  of  the  instincts 
in  the  higher  animals  are  remarkable  in  contrast  with 
those  of  the  lower  animals.     Cuvier  maintained  that  instinct 

loand  intelligence  stand  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  each  other;  and 
some  have  thought  that  the  intellectual  faculties  of  the 
higher  animals  have  been  gradually  developed  from  their 
instincts.  But  Pouchet,  in  an  interesting  essay,  has  shown 
that  no  such  inverse  ratio  really  exists.     Those  insects  which 

15  possess  the  most  wonderful  instincts  are  certainly  the 
most  intelligent.  In  the  vertebrate  series,  the  least  intel- 
ligent members,  namely  fishes  and  amphibians,  do  not 
possess  complex  instincts;  and  among  mammals  the  animal 
most  remarkable  for  its  instincts,   namely  the  beaver,   is 

20  highly  intelligent,  as  will  be  admitted  by  every  one  who 
has  read  Mr.  Morgan's  excellent  work.^ 

But  although,  as  we  learn  from  the  *bove-mentioned 
insects  and  the  beaver,  a  high  degree  of  intelligence  is  cer- 
tainly   compatible    with   complex   instincts,    and   although 

25  actions,  at  first  learned  voluntarily,  can  soon  through  habit 
be  performed  with  the  quickness  and  certainty  of  a  reflex 
action,  yet  it  is  not  improbable  that  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  interference  between  the  development  of  free  intelligence 
and  of  instinct,  since  the  latter  impHes  some  inherited  modi- 

3ofication  of  the  brain.  Little  is  known  about  the  functions 
of  the  brain,  but  we  can  perceive  that  as  the  intellectual 
powers  become  highly  developed  the  various  parts  of  the 
brain  must  be  connected  by  very  intricate  channels  of  the 
freesjL    intercommunication;     and    as    a    consequence    each 

35  separate  part  would  perhaps  tend  to  be  less  well  fitted  to 
answer  to  particular  sensations  or  associations  in  a  definite 
1  "  The  American  Beaver  and  his  Works,"  186S. — Author's  note. 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AND  LOWER  ANLMALS     205 

and  inherited — that  is,  instinctive — manner.  There  seems 
even  to  exist  some  relation  between  a  low  degree  of  intel- 
ligence and  a  strong  tendency  to  the  formation  of  fixed, 
though  not  inherited,  habits;  for  as  a  sagacious  physician 
remarked  to  me,  persons  who  are  slightly  imbecile  tend  5 
to  act  in  everything  by  routine  or  habit;  and  they  are  ren- 
dered much  happier  if  this  is  encouraged. 

I  have  thought  this  digression  worth  giving,  because  we 
may  easily  underrate  the  mental  powers  of  the  higher  animals, 
and  especially  of  man,  when  we  compare  their  actions  founded  10 
on  the  memory  of  past  events,  on  foresight,  reason  and  imag- 
ination, with  exactly  similar  actions  instinctively  performed 
by  the  lower  animals;  in  this  latter  case  the  capacity  of 
performing  such  actions  has  been  gained,  step  by  step, 
through  the  variabiUty  of  the  mental  organs  and  natural  15 
selection,  without  any  conscious  intelligence  on  the  part 
of  the  animal  during  each  successive  generation.  No 
doubt,  as  Mr.  Wallace  has  argued,  much  of  the  intelligent 
work  done  by  man  is  due  to  imitation  and  not  to  reason; 
but  there  is  this  great  difference  between  his  actions  and  20 
many  of  those  performed  by  the  lower  animals,  namely, 
that  man  cannot,  on  his  first  trial,  make,  for  instance,  a 
stone  hatchet  or  a  canoe,  through  his  power  of  imitation. 
He  has  to  learn  his  work  by  practice;  a  beaver,  on  the 
other  hand,  can  make  its  dam  or  canal,  and  a  bird  its  nest,  25 
as  well,  or  nearly  as  well,  and  a  spider  its  wonderful  web 
quite  as  well,  the  first  time  it  tries  as  when  old  and 
experienced. 

To  return  to  our  immediate  subject:  the  lower  animals, 
like  man,  manifestly  feel  pleasure  and  pain,  happmess  and 30 
misery.  Happiness  is  never  better  exhibited  than  by  young 
animals,  such  as  puppies,  kittens,  lambs,  etc.,  when  playing 
together,  like  our  own  children.  Even  insects  play  to- 
gether, as  has  been  described  by  that  excellent  observer, 
P.  Huber,  who  saw  ants  chasing  and  pretending  to  bite  each  35 
other,  like  so  many  pup])ies. 

The  fact  that  the  lower  animals  are  excited  bv  the  same 


266  CHARLES  DARWIN 

emotions  as  ourselves  is  so  well  established  that  it  will  not 
be  necessary  to  weary  the  reader  by  many  details.  Terror 
acts  in  the  same  manner  on  them  as  on  us,  causing  the  mus- 
cles to  tremble,  the  heart  to  palpitate,  the  sphincters  to  be 
S relaxed,  and  the  hair  to  stand  on  end.  Suspicion,  the  off- 
spring of  fear,  is  eminently  characteristic  of  most  wild  ani- 
mals. It  is,  I  think,  impossible  to  read  the  account  given 
by  Sir  E.  Tennent,  of  the  behaviour  of  the  female  elephants 
used  as  decoys,  without  admitting  that  they  intentionally 

lo  practise  deceit,  and  well  know  what  they  are  about.  Cour- 
age and  timidity  are  extremely  variable  qualities  in  the  in- 
dividuals of  the  same  species,  as  is  plainly  seen  in  our  dogs. 
Some  dogs  and  horses  are  ill-tempered  and  easily  turn 
sulky;  others  are  good-tempered ;  and  these  qualities  are  cer- 

15  tainly  inherited.  Every  one  knows  how  liable  animals  are 
to  furious  rage  and  how  plainly  they  show  it.  Many,  and 
probably  true,  anecdotes  have  been  published  on  the  long- 
delayed  and  artful  revenge  of  various  animals.  The  accu- 
rate  Rengger  and  Brehm  ^   state  that  the  American   and 

20  African  monkeys  which  they  kept  tame  certainly  revenged 
themselves.  Sir  Andrew  Smith,  a  zoologist  whose  scru- 
pulous accuracy  was  known  to  many  persons,  told  me  the 
following  story  of  which  he  was  himself  an  eye-witness:  At 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  an  ofHcer  had  often  plagued  a  cer- 

25  tain  baboon,  and  the  animal,  seeing  him  approaching  one 
Sunday  for  parade,  poured  water  into  a  hole  and  hastily 
made  some  thick  mud,  which  he  skilfully  dashed  over  the 
officer  as  he  passed  by,  to  the  amusement  of  many  by- 
standers.    For   long    afterwards    the  baboon   rejoiced  and 

30  triumphed  whenever  he  saw  his  victim. 

The  love  of  a  dog  for  his  master  is  notorious;  as  an  old 
writer  quaintly  says:  ''  A  dog  is  the  only  thing  on  this  earth 
that  luvs  you  more  than  he  luvs  himself."     In  the  agony 

^  All  the  following  statements,  given  on  the  authority  of  these  two 
naturalists,  are  taken  from  Rengger's  "  Naturgesch.  der  Siiugethiere 
von  Paraguay,"  1830,  s.  41-57,  and  from  Brehm's  "  Thierleben," 
B.i,  s.  10-87. — Author's  note. 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AND  LOWER  ANIMALS     267 

of  death  a  dog  has  been  known  to  caress  his  master,  and 
every  one  has  heard  of  the  dog  suffering  under  vivisection, 
who  Hcked  the  hand  of  the  operator;  this  man,  unless  the 
operation  was  fully  justified  by  an  increase  of  our  knowl- 
edge, or  unless  he  had  a  heart  of  stone,  must  have  felt  remorse  s 
to  the  last  hour  of  his  life. 

As  Whewell  has  well  asked:  "  Who  that  reads  the  touch- 
ing instances  of  maternal  affection,  related  so  often  of  the 
women  of  all  tialiv>ns  and  of  the  females  of  all  animals,  can 
doubt  that  the  principle  of  action  is  the  same  in  the  twoio 
cases?  "  We  see  maternal  affection  exhibited  in  the  most 
trifling  details;  thus,  Rengger  observed  an  American 
monkey  (a  Cebus)  carefully  driving  away  the  flies  which 
plagued  her  infant;  and  Duvaucel  saw  a  Hylobates  washing 
the  face  of  her  young  ones  in  a  stream.  So  intense  is  the  15 
grief  of  female  monkeys  for  the  loss  of  their  young  that  it 
invariably  caused  the  death  of  certain  kinds  kept  under 
confinement  by  Brehm  in  N.  Africa.  Orphan  monkeys 
were  always  adopted  and  carefully  guarded  by  the  other 
monkeys,  both  males  and  females.  One  female  baboon  20 
had  so  capacious  a  heart  that  she  not  only  adopted  young 
monkeys  of  other  species,  but  stole  young  dogs  and  cats, 
which  she  continually  carried  about.  Her  kindness,  however, 
did  not  go  so  far  as  to  share  her  food  with  her  adopted 
offspring,  at  which  Brehm  was  surprised,  as  his  monkeys  25 
always  divided  everything  quite  fairly  with  their  own  young 
ones.  An  adopted  kitten  scratched  this  affectionate  baboon, 
who  certainly  had  a  fine  intellect,  for  she  was  much  astonished 
at  being  scratched,  and  immediately  examined  the  kitten's 
feet,  and  without  more  ado  bit  off  the  claws. ^  In  the  Zoo- 30 
logical  Gardens  I  heard  from  the  keeper  that  an  old  baboon 
(C.   chacma)   had  adopted  a  Rhesus  monkey;    but  when 

^A  critic,  without  any  grounds  ("Quarterly  Review,"  July,  1871, 
p.  72),  disputes  the  possibility  of  this  act  as  described  by  Brehhi,  for 
the  sake  of  discrediting  my  work.  Therefore  I  tried,  and  found  that 
I  could  readily  seize  with  my  own  teeth  the  sharp  little  claws  of  a  kitten 
nearly  five  weeks  old. — Author's  note. 


268  CHARLES  DARWIN 

a  young  drill  and  mandrill  were  placed  in  the  cage  she  seemed 
to  perceive  that  these  monkeys,  though  distinct  species, 
were  her  nearer  relatives,  for  she  at  once  rejected  the  Rhesus 
and  adopted  both  of  them.  The  young  Rhesus,  as  I  saw, 
5  was  greatly  discontented  at  being  thus  rejected,  and  it 
would,  like  a  naughty  child,  annoy  and  attack  the  young 
drill  and  mandrill  whenever  it  could  do  so  with  safety;  this 
conduct  exciting  great  indignation  in  the  old  baboon.  Mon- 
keys will  also,  according  to  Brehm,  defend  their  master  when 

lo  attacked  by  any  one,  as  well  as  dogs  to  whom  they  are 
attached,  from  the  attacks  of  other  dogs.  But  we  here 
trench  on  the  subjects  of  sympathy  and  fidelity  to  which 
I  shall  recur.  Some  of  Brehm's  monkeys  took  much  delight 
in  teasing  a  certain  old  dog  whom  they  disHked,  as  well  as 

15  other  animals,  in  various  ingenious  ways. 

Most  of  the  more  complex  emotions  are  common  to  the 
higher  animals  and  ourselves.  Every  one  has  seen  how 
jealous  a  dog  is  of  his  master's  affections  if  lavished  on  any 
other  creature;    and  I  have  observed  the  same  fact  with 

20  monkeys.  This  shows  that  animals  not  only  love,  but 
have  a  desire  to  be  loved.  Animals  manifestly  feel  emula- 
tion. They  love  approbation  or  praise;  and  a  dog  carry- 
ing a  basket  for  his  master  exhibits  in  a'^igh  degree  self- 
complacency  or  pride.     There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt 

25  that  a  dog  feels  shame,  as  distinct  from  fear,  and  some- 
thing very  like  modesty  when  begging  too  often  for  food. 
A  great  dog  scorns  the  snarling  of  a  Httle  dog,  and  this  may 
be  called  magnanimity.  Several  observers  have  stated 
that  monkeys  certainly  dislike  being  laughed  at;    and  they 

30  sometimes  invent  imaginary  offenses.  In  the  Zoological 
Gardens  I  saw  a  baboon  who  always  got  into  a  furious  rage 
when  his  keeper  took  out  a  letter  or  book  and  read  it  aloud 
to  him;  and  his  rage  was  so  violent  that,  as  I  witnessed  on 
one  occasion,  he  bit  his  own  leg  till  the  blood  flowed.     Dogs 

35  show  what  may  be  fairly  called  a  sense  of  humour  as  distinct 
from  mere  play;  if  a  bit  of  stick  or  other  such  object  be  thrown 
to  one,  he  will  often  carry  it  away  for  a  short  distance;   and 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AM)  LOWER  ANIMALS     269 

then  squatting  down  with  it  on  the  ground  close  before  him, 
will  wait  until  his  master  comes  quite  close  to  take  it  away. 
The  dog  will  then  seize  it  and  rush  away  in  triumph,  repeat- 
ing the  same  maneuver,  and  evidently  enjoying  the  practi- 
cal joke.  5 

We  will  now  turn  to  the  more  intellectual  emotions  and 
faculties,  which  are  very  important,  as  forming  the  basis 
for  the  development  of  the  higher  mental  powers.  Animals 
manifestly  enjoy  excitement,  and  suffer  from  ennui,  as  may 
be  seen  with  dogs,  and,  according  to  Rengger,  with  mon-  lo 
keys.  All  animals  feel  Wonder  and  many  exhibit  Curiosity. 
They  sometimes  suffer  from  this  latter  quality,  as  when 
the  hunter  plays  antics  and  thus  attracts  them;  I  have 
witnessed  this  with  deer,  and  so  it  is  with  the  wary  chamois, 
and  with  some  kinds  of  wild  ducks.  Brehm  gives  a  curious  15 
account  of  the  instinctive  dread,  which  his  monkeys  exhibited, 
for  snakes;  but  their  curiosity  was  so  great  that  they  could 
not  desist  from  occasionally  satiating  their  horror  in  a  most 
human  fashion  by  lifting  up  the  lid  of  the  box  in  which  the 
snakes  were  kept.  I  was  so  much  surprised  at  his  account  20 
that  I  took  a  stuffed  and  coiled-up  snake  into  the  monkey- 
house  at  the  Zoological  Gardens,  and  the  excitement  thus 
caused  was  one  of  the  most  curious  spectacles  which  I  ever 
beheld.  Three  species  of  Cercopithecus  were  the  most 
alarmed;  they  dashed  about  their  cages  and  uttered  sharp 25 
signal  cries  of  danger,  which  were  understood  by  the  other 
monkeys.  A  few  young  monkeys  and  one  old  Anubis 
baboon  alone  took  no  notice  of  the  snake.  I  then  placed 
the  stuffed  specimen  on  the  ground  in  one  of  the  larger 
compartments.  After  a  time  all  the  monkeys  collected  30 
round  it  in  a  large  circle,  and,  staring  intently,  presented 
a  most  ludicrous  appearance.  They  became  extremely 
nervous;  so  that  when  a  wooden  ball,  with  which  they  were 
familiar  as  a  plaything,  was  accidentally  moved  in  the  s1;raw, 
under  which  it  was  partly  hidden,  they  all  instantly  started 35 
away.  These  monkeys  behaved  very  differently  when  a 
dead  fish,  a  mouse,  a  living  turtle,  and  other  new  objects 


270  CHARLES  DARWIN 

were  placed  in  their  cages;  for  though  at  first  frightened, 
they  soon  approached,  handled,  and  examined  them.  I 
then  placed  a  live  snake  in  a  paper  bag,  with  the  mouth 
loosely  closed,  in  one  of  the  larger  compartments.  One 
5  of  the  monkeys  immediately  approached,  cautiously  opened 
the  bag  a  little,  peeped  in,  and  instantly  dashed  away. 
Then  I  witnessed  what  Brehm  has  described;  for  monkey 
after  monkey,  with  head  raised  high  and  turned  on  one 
side,  could  not  resist  taking  a  momentary  peep  into  the 

lo  upright  bag,  at  the  dreadful  object  lying  quietly  at  the 
bottom.  It  would  almost  appear  as  if  monkeys  had  some 
notion  of  zoological  affinities,  for  those  kept  by  Brehm 
exhibited  a  strange,  although  mistaken,  instinctive  dread 
of  innocent  Hzards  and  frogs.     An  orang,  also,  has  been 

15  known  to  be  much  alarmed  at  the  first  sight  of  a  turtle. 

The  principle  of  Imitation  is  strong  in  man,  and  especially, 
as  I  have  myself  observed,  with  savages.  In  certain  morbid 
states  of  the  brain  this  tendency  is  exaggerated  to  an  extraor- 
dinary degree;   some  hemiplegic  patients  and  others,  at  the 

20  commencement  of  inflammatory  softening  of  the  brain, 
unconsciously  imitate  every  word  which  is  uttered,  whether 
in  their  own  or  a  foreign  language,  and^every  gesture  or 
action  which  is  performed  near  them.  Desor  has  remarked 
that  no  animal  voluntarily  imitates  an  action  performed 

25  by  man,  until,  in  the  ascending  scale,  we  come  to  monkeys, 
which  are  well  known  to  be  ridiculous  mockers.  Animals, 
however,  sometimes  imitate  each  other's  actions;  thus 
two  species  of  wolves,  which  had  been  reared  by  dogs, 
learned  to  bark,  as  does  sometimes  the  jackal,  but  whether 

30  this  can  be  called  voluntary  imitation  is  another  question. 
Birds  imitate  the  songs  of  their  parents,  and  sometimes 
of  other  birds;  and  parrots  are  notorious  imitators  of  any 
sound  which  they  often  hear.  Bureau  de  la  Malle  gives  an 
account  of  a  dog  reared  by  a  cat,  who  learned  to  imitate 

35  the  well-known  action  of  a  cat  licking  her  paws,  and  thus 
washing  her  ears  and  face;  this  was  also  witnessed  by  the 
celebrated    naturalist    Audouin.     I    have    received    several 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AND  LOWER  ANIMALS     271 

confirmatory  accounts;  in  one  of  these,  a  dog  had  not  been 
suckled  by  a  cat,  but  had  been  brought  up  with  one,  together 
with  kittens,  and  had  thus  acquired  the  above  habit,  which 
he  ever  afterward  practised  during  his  life  of  thirteen 
years.  Dureau  de  la  Malle's  dog  likewise  learned  from  the  5 
kittens  to  play  with  a  ball  by  rolling  it  about  with  his  fore- 
paws  and  springing  on  it.  A  correspondent  assures  me 
that  a  cat  in  his  house  used  to  put  her  paws  into  jugs  of  milk 
having  too  narrow  a  mouth  for  her  head.  A  kitten  of  this 
cat  soon  leaned  the  same  trick,  and  practised  it  ever  after- 10 
ward  whenever  there  was  an  opportunity. 

The  parents  of  many  animals,  trusting  to  the  principle 
of  imitation  in  their  young,  and  more  especially  to  their 
instinctive  or  inherited  tendencies,  may  be  said  to  educate 
them.  We  see  this  when  a  cat  brings  a  live  mouse  to  her  15 
kittens;  and  Dureau  de  la  Malic  has  given  a  curious  account 
(in  the  paper  above  quoted)  of  his  observations  on  hawks 
which  taught  their  young  dexterity,  as  well  as  judgment 
of  distances,  by  first  dropping  through  the  air  dead  mice 
and  sparrows,  which  the  young  generally  failed  to  catch,  20 
and  then  bringing  them  live  birds  and  letting  them  loose. 

Hardly  any  faculty  is  more  important  for  the  intellectual 
progress  of  man  than  Attention.  Animals  clearly  manifest 
this  power,  as  when  a  cat  watches  by  a  hole  and  prepares 
to  spring  on  its  prey.  Wild  animals  sometimes  become  25 
so  absorbed  when  thus  engaged  that  they  may  be  easily 
approached.  Mr.  Bartlctt  has  given  me  a  curious  proof 
of  how  variable  this  faculty  is  in  monkeys.  A  man  who 
trains  monkeys  to  act  in  plays  used  to  purchase  common 
kinds  from  the  Zoological  Society  at  the  price  of  five  pounds  30 
for  each;  but  he  offered  to  give  double  the  price  if  he  might 
keep  three  or  four  of  them  for  a  few  days  in  order  to  select 
one.  When  asked  how  he  could  possibly  learn  so  soon 
whether  a  particular  monkey  would  turn  out  a  good  actor, 
he  answered  that  it  all  depended  on  their  power  of  atten-35 
tion.  If  when  he  was  talking  and  explaining  anything  to  a 
monkey  its  attention  was  easily  distracted,  as  by  a  fly  on 


272  CHARLES  DARWIN 

the  wall  or  other  trifling  object,  the  case  was  hopeless. 
If  he  tried  by  punishment  to  make  an  inattentive  monkey 
act,  it  turned  sulky.  On  the  other  hand,  a  monkey  which 
carefully  attended  to  him  could  always  be  trained. 
5  It  is  almost  superfluous  to  state  that  animals  have 
excellent  memories  for  persons  and  places.  A  baboon  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  as  I  have  been  informed  by  Sir 
Andrew  Smith,  recognised  him  with  joy  after  an  absence 
of  nine  months.     I  had  a  dog  who  was  savage  and  averse 

loto  all  strangers,  and  I  purposely  tried  his  memory  after  an 
absence  of  five  years  and  two  days.  I  went  near  the  stable 
where  he  lived  and  shouted  to  him  in  my  old  manner;  he 
showed  no  joy,  but  instantly  followed  me  out  walking,  and 
obeyed  me  exactly  as  if  I  had  parted  with  him  only  half  an 

15  hour  before.  A  train  of  old  associations,  dormant  during 
five  years,  had  thus  been  instantaneously  awakened  in 
his  mind.  Even  ants,  as  P.  Huber  has  clearly  shown, 
recognised  their  fellow-ants  belonging  to  the  same  com- 
munity after  a  separation  of  four  months.     Animals  can 

20  certainly  by  some  means  judge  of  the  intervals  of  time 
between  recurrent  events. 

The  Imagination  is  one  of  the  highest  prerogatives  of  man. 
By  this  faculty  he  may  unite  former  images  and  ideas, 
independently  of  the  will,  and  thus  create  brilliant  and  novel 

25  results.  A  poet,  as  Jean  Paul  Richter  remarks,  "  who 
must  reflect  whether  he  shall  make  a  character  say  yes  or 
no — to  the  devil  with  him;  he  is  only  a  stupid  corpse." 
The  value  of  the  products  of  our  imagination  depends  of 
course  on  the  number,  accuracy,  and  clearness  of  our  impres- 

3osions,  on  our  judgment  and  taste  in  selecting  or  rejecting 
the  involuntary  combinations,  and  to  a  certain  extent  on 
our  power  of  voluntarily  combining  them.  As  dogs,  cats, 
horses,  and  probably  all  the  higher  animals,  even  birds, 
have  vivid  dreams,  and  this  is  shown  by  their  movements 

35  and  the  sounds  uttered,  we  must  admit  that  they  possess 
some  power  of  imagination.  There  must  be  something 
special  which  causes  dogs  to  howl  in  the  night,  and  especially 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAX  AND  LOWER  ANIMALS     273 

during  moonlight,  In  that  remarkable  and  melancholy  manner 
called  baying.  All  dogs  do  not  do  so;  and,  according  to 
Houzeau,  they  do  not  then  look  at  the  moon,  but  at  some 
fixed  point  near  the  horizon.  Houzeau  thinks  that  their 
imaginations  are  disturbed  by  the  vague  outlines  of  the  s 
surrounding  objects,  and  conjure  up  before  them  fantastic 
images;  if  this  be  so,  their  feelings  may  almost  be  called 
superstitious. 

Of  all  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind,  it  will,  I  presume, 
be  admitted  that  Reason  stands  at  the  summit.  Only  a  lo 
few  persons  now  dispute  that  animals  possess  some  power 
of  reasoning.  Animals  may  constantly  be  seen  to  pause, 
deliberate,  and  resolve.  It  is  a  significant  fact,  that  the 
more  the  habits  of  any  particular  animal  are  studied  by  a 
naturalist,  the  more  he  attributes  to  reason  and  the  less  15 
to  unlearned  instincts.  In  future  chapters  we  shall  see 
that  some  animals  extremely  low  in  the  scale  apparently 
display  a  certain  amount  of  reason.  No  doubt  it  is  often 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  the  power  of  reason  and  that 
of  instinct.  For  instance,  Dr.  Hayes,  in  his  work  on  "  The  20 
Open  Polar  Sea,"  repeatedly  remarks  that  his  dogs,  instead 
of  continuing  to  draw  the  sledges  in  a  compact  body,  diverged 
and  separated  when  they  came  to  thin  ice,  so  that  their 
weight  might  be  more  evenly  distributed.  This  was  often 
the  first  warning  which  the  travellers  received  that  the  ice  25 
was  becoming  thin  and  dangerous.  Now,  did  the  dogs 
act  thus  from  the  experience  of  each  individual,  or  from  the 
example  of  the  older  and  wiser  dogs,  or  from  an  inherited 
habit,  that  is  from  instinct?  This  instinct  may  possibly 
have  arisen  since  the  time,  long  ago,  when  dogs  were  first  30 
employed  by  the  natives  in  drawing  their  sledges;  or  the 
Arctic  wolves,  the  parent-stock  of  the  Esquimau  dog,  may 
have  acquired  an  instinct  impelling  them  not  to  attack 
their  prey  in  a  close  pack,  when  on  thin  ice. 

We  can  only  judge  by  the  circumstances  under  which  35 
actions  are  performed,  whether  they  are  due  to  instinct, 
or  to  reason,  or  to  the  mere  association  of  ideas;  this  latter 


274  CHARLES  DARWIN 

principle,  however,  is  intimately  connected  with  reason. 
A  curious  case  has  been  given  by  Professor  Mobius,  of  a 
pike,  separated  by  a  plate  of  glass  from  an  adjoining  aqua- 
rium stocked  with  fish,  and  who  often  dashed  himself  with 

5  such  violence  against  the  glass  in  trying  to  catch  the  other 
fishes,  that  he  was  sometimes  completely  stunned.  The 
pike  went  on  thus  for  three  months,  but  at  last  learned 
caution,  and  ceased  to  do  so.  The  plate  of  glass  was  then 
removed,  but  the  pike  would  not  attack  these  particular 

lo  fishes,  though  he  would  devour  others  which  were  after- 
ward introduced;  so  strongly  was  the  idea  of  a  violent 
shock  associated  in  his  feeble  mind  with  the  attempt  on  his 
former  neighbours.  If  a  savage  who  had  never  seen  a  large 
plate-glass  window,  were  to  dash  himself  even  once  against 

IS  it,  he  would  for  a  long  time  afterward  associate  a  shock  with 
a  window-frame;  but,  very  differently  from  the  pike,  he 
would  probably  reflect  on  the  nature  of  the  impediment, 
and  be  cautious  under  analogous  circumstances.  Now 
with  monkeys,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  a  painful  or  merely 

20  a  disagreeable  impression,  from  an  action  once  performed, 
is  sometimes  sufficient  to  prevent  the  animal  from  repeating 
it.  If  we  attribute  this  difference  bet\ween  the  monkeys 
and  the  pike  solely  to  the  association  of  ideas  being  so  much 
stronger  and  more  persistent  in  the  one  than  the  other, 

25  though  the  pike  often  received  much  the  more  severe  injury, 
can  we  maintain  in  the  case  of  man  that  a  similar  difference 
implies  the  possession  of  a  fundamentally  difTerent  mind? 

Houzeau   relates   that,   while   crossing  a  wide  and  arid 
plain  in  Texas,  his  two  dogs  suffered  greatly  from  thirst, 

30  and  that  between  thirty  and  forty  times  they  rushed  down 
the  hollows  to  search  for  water.  These  hollows  were  not 
valleys,  and  there  were  no  trees  in  them,  or  any  other  dif- 
ference in  the  vegetation,  and  as  they  were  absolutely  dry, 
there  could  have  been  no  smell  of  damp  earth.     The  dogs 

35  behaved  as  if  they  knew  that  a  dip  in  the  ground  oflered 
them  the  best  chance  of  finding  water,  and  Houzeau  has 
often  witnessed  the  same  behaviour  in  other  animals. 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AND  LOWER  ANIMALS     275 

I  have  seen,  as  I  dare  say  have  others,  that  when  a  small 
object  is  thrown  on  the  ground  beyond  the  reach  of  one 
of  the  elephants  in  the  Zoological  Gardens,  he  blows  through 
his  trunk  on  the  ground  beyond  the  object,  so  that  the  cur- 
rent reflected  on  all  sides  may  drive  the  object  within  his  s 
reach.  Again,  a  well-known  ethnologist,  Mr.  Westropp, 
informs  me  that  he  observed  in  Vienna  a  bear  deliberately 
making  with  his  paw  a  current  in  some  water,  which  was 
close  to  the  bars  of  his  cage,  so  as  to  draw  a  piece  of  floating 
bread  within  his  reach.  These  actions  of  the  elephant  lo 
and  bear  can  hardly  be  attributed  to  instinct  or  inherited 
habit,  as  they  would  be  of  little  use  to  an  animal  in  a  state 
of  nature.  Now,  what  is  the  difference  between  such 
actions,  when  performed  by  an  uncultivated  man,  and  by 
one  of  the  higher  animals?  15 

The  savage  and  the  dog  have  often  found  water  at  a  low 
level,  and  the  coincidence  under  such  circumstances  has 
become  associated  in  their  minds.  A  cultivated  man  would 
perhaps  make  some  general  proposition  on  the  subject; 
but  from  all  that  we  know  of  savages  it  is  extremely  doubt-  20 
ful  whether  they  would  do  so,  and  a  dog  would  certainly 
not.  But  a  savage,  as  well  as  a  dog,  would  search  in  the 
same  way,  though  frequently  disappointed,  and  in  both 
it  seems  to  be  equally  an  act  of  reason,  whether  or  not  any 
general  proposition  on  the  subject  is  consciously  placed  25 
before  the  mind.  The  same  would  apply  to  the  elephant 
and  the  bear  making  currents  in  the  air  or  water.  The 
savage  would  certainly  neither  know  nor  care  by  what 
law  the  desired  movements  were  etlected;  yet  his  act  would 
be  guided  by  a  rude  process  of  reasoning,  as  surely  as  would  30 
a  philosopher  in  his  longest  chain  of  deductions.  There 
would  no  doubt  be  this  difference  between  him  and  one 
of  the  higher  animals,  that  he  would  take  notice  of  much 
slighter  circumstances  and  conditions,  and  would  observe 
any  connection  between  them  after  much  less  experience,  35 
and  this  would  be  of  paramount  importance.  I  kept  a 
daily  record  of  the  actions  of  one  of  my  infants,  and  when 


276  CHARLES  DARWIN 

he  was  about  eleren  months  old,  and  before  he  could  speak 
a  single  word,  I  was  continually  struck  with  the  greater 
quickness  with  which  all  sorts  of  objects  and  sounds  were 
associated  together  in  his  mind,  compared  with  that  of  the 
5  most  intelligent  dogs  I  ever  knew.  But  the  higher  animals 
differ  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  this  power  of  association 
from  those  low  in  the  scale,  such  as  the  pike,  as  well  as  in 
that  of  drawing  inferences  and  of  observation. 

The  promptings  of  reason,  after  very  short  experience, 

loare  well  shown  by  the  following  actions  of  American  mon- 
keys, which  stand  low  in  their  order.  Rengger,  a  most 
careful  observer,  states  that  when  he  first  gave  eggs  to  his 
monkeys  in  Paraguay  they  smashed  them  and  thus  lost 
much  of  their  contents;   afterward  they  gently  hit  one  end 

IS  against  some  hard  body,  and  picked  off  the  bits  of  shell 
with  their  fingers.  After  cutting  themselves  only  once 
with  any  sharp  tool,  they  would  not  touch  it  again,  or 
would  handle  it  with  the  greatest  caution.  Lumps  of  sugar 
were  often  given  them  wrapped  up  in  paper;    and  Rengger 

20  sometimes  put  a  live  wasp  in  the  paper,  so  that  in  hastily 
unfolding  it  they  got  stung;  after  this  had  once  happened 
they  always  held  the  packet  to  their  ea«s  to  detect  any 
movement  within. 

The    following    cases    relate    to    dogs.     Mr.    Colquhoun 

25  winged  two  wild  ducks,  which  fell  on  the  farther  side  of  a 
stream;  his  retriever  tried  to  bring  over  both  at  once,  but 
could  not  succeed;  she  then,  though  never  before  known 
to  ruffle  a  feather,  deliberately  killed  one,  brought  over 
the  other,  and  returned  for  the  dead  bird.     Colonel  Hutchin- 

30  son  relates  that  two  partridges  were  shot  at  once,  one  being 
killed,  the  other  wounded;  the  latter  ran  away  and  was 
caught  by  the  retriever,  who  on  her  return  came  across 
the  dead  bird:  "  She  stopped,  evidently  greatly  puzzled, 
and  after  one  or  two  trials,  finding  she  could  not  take  it 

35  up  without  permitting  the  escape  of  the  winged  bird,  she 
considered  a  moment,  then  deliberately  murdered  it  by  giving 
it    a    severe    crunch,    and    afterward    brought    away    both 


MENTAL  POWERS  OF  MAN  AND  LOWER  ANIMALS     277 

together.  This  was  the  only  known  instance  of  her  ever 
having  wilfully  injured  any  game."  Here  we  have  reason, 
though  not  quite  perfect,  for  the  retriever  might  have 
brought  the  wounded  bird  first  and  then  returned  for  the 
dead  one,  as  in  the  case  of  the  two  wild-ducks.  I  give  the  5 
above  cases  as  resting  on  the  evidence  of  two  independent 
witnesses  and  because  in  both  instances  the  retrievers, 
after  deliberation,  broke  through  a  habit  which  is  inherited 
by  them  (that  of  not  killing  the  game  retrieved),  and  because 
they  show  how  strong  their  reasoning  faculty  must  have  10 
been  to  overcome  a  fixed  habit. 

I  will  conclude  by  quoting  a  remark  by  the  illustrious 
Humboldt.  "  The  muleteers  in  South  America  say,  '  I  will 
not  give  you  the  mule  whose  step  is  easiest,  but  la  mas 
racional — the  one  that  reasons  best;'"  and,  as  he  adds,  15 
"  this  popular  expression,  dictated  by  long  experience, 
combats  the  system  of  animated  machines  better  perhaps 
than  all  the  arguments  of  speculative  philosophy."  Never- 
theless some  writers  even  yet  deny  that  the  higher  animajs 
possess  a  trace  of  reason;  and  they  endeavour  to  explain  20 
away,  by  what  appears  to  be  mere  verbiage,  all  such  facts 
as  those  above  given. 

It  has,  I  think,  now  been  shown  that  man  and  the  higher 
animals,  especially  the  Primates,  have  some  few  instincts 
in  common.  All  have  the  same  senses,  intuitions,  and  25 
sensations — similar  passions,  affections,  and  emotions,  even 
the  more  complex  ones,  such  as  jealousy,  suspicion,  emula- 
tion, gratitude  and  magnanimity;  they  practise  deceit  and 
are  revengeful;  they  are  sometimes  susceptible  to  ridicule, 
and  even  have  a  sense  of  humour;  they  feel  wonder  and  30 
curiosity;  they  possess  the  same  faculties  of  imitation, 
attention,  deliberation,  choice,  memory,  imagination,  the 
association  of  ideas,  and  reason,  though  in  very  different 
degrees.  ^ 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST:    A  SOURCE  OF 
BEAUTY  AND  ESSENTIAL  TO  LIFE  i 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace 

The  majority  of  persons,  if  asked  what  were  the  uses  of 
dust,  would  reply  that  they  did  not  know  it  had  any,  but 
they  were  sure  it  was  a  great  nuisance.  It  is  truethat  dust, 
in  our  towns  and  in  our  houses,  is  often  not  only  a  nuisance 

shut  a  serious  source  of  disease:  while  in  many  countries 
it  produces  ophthalmia,  often  resulting  in  total  blindness. 
Dust,  however,  as  it  is  usually  perceived  by  us,  is,  like  dirt, 
only  matter  in  the  wrong  place,  and  whatever  injurious  or 
disagreeable  effects  it  produces  are  largely  due  to  our  own 

lo  dealings  with  nature.  So  soon  as  we  dispense  with  horse- 
power and  adopt  purely  mechanical  means  of  traction  and 
conveyance,  we  can  almost  wholly  abolish  disease-bearing 
dust  from  our  streets,  and  ultimately  from  all  our  highways; 
while  another  kind  of  dust,  that  caused  by  the  imperfect 

IS  combustion  of  coal,  may  be  got  rid  of  with  equal  facihty 
so  soon  as  we  consider  pure  air,  sunlight,  and  natural  beauty 
to  be  of  more  importance  to  the  population  as  a  whole  than 
are  the  prejudices  or  the  vested  interests  of  those  who  pro- 
duce the  smoke. 

20  But  though  we  can  thus  minimize  the  dangers  and  the 
inconveniences  arising  from  the  grosser  forms  of  dust,  we 
cannot  wholly  abolish  it;  and  it  is,  indeed,  fortunate  we 
cannot  do  so,  since  it  has  now  been  discovered  that  it  is  to 
the  presence  of  dust  we  owe  much  of  the  beauty,  and  per- 

1  Chapter  IX  of  "  The  Wonderful  Century,"  copyright,  1898,  by 
Dodd,  Mead  and  Company.  The  chapter  is  here  reprinted  by  permis- 
sion of  the  author,  Dr.  Wallace,  and  of  the  publishers. 

278 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  279 

haps  even  the  very  habitability  of  the  earth  we  live  upon. 
Few  of  the  fairy  tales  of  science  are  more  marvelous  than 
these  recent  discoveries  as  to  the  varied  effects  and  import- 
ant uses  of  dust  in  the  economy  of  nature. 

The  question  why  the  sky  and  the  deep  ocean  are  both  5 
blue  did  not  much  concern  the  earlier  physicists.     It  was 
thought  to  be  the  natural  color  of  pure  air  and  water,  so 
pale  as  not  to  be  visible  when  small  quantities  were  seen, 
and  only  exhibiting  its  true  tint  when  we  looked  through 
great  depth  of  atmosphere  or  of  organic  water.     But  this  10 
theory  did  not  explain  the  famihar  facts  of  the  gorgeous 
tints  seen  at  sunset  and  sunrise,  not  only  in  the  atmosphere 
and  on  the  clouds  near  the  horizon,  but  also  in  equally  re- 
splendent hues  when  the  invisible  sun  shines  upon  Alpine 
peaks  and  snowfields.     A  true   theory  should  explain   all  15 
these  colors,  which  comprise  almost  every  tint  of  the  rain- 
bow. 

The  explanation  was  found  through  experiments  on  the 
visibility  or  non-visibility  of  air,  which  were  made  by  the 
late  Professor  Tyndall  about  the  year  1868.  Everyone  20 
has  seen  the  floating  dust  in  a  sunbeam  when  sunshine 
enters  a  partially  darkened  room;  but  it  is  not  generally 
known  that  if  there  was  absolutely  no  dust  in  the  air  the 
path  of  the  sunbeam  would  be  totally  black  and  invisible, 
while  if  only  very  little  dust  was  present  in  very  minute  25 
particles  the  air  would  be  as  blue  as  the  summer  sky. 

This  was  proved  by  passing  a  ray  of  electric  light  length- 
ways through  a  long  glass  cylinder  filled  with  air  of  varying 
degrees  of  purity  as  regards  dust.  In  the  air  of  an  ordinary 
room,  however  clean  and  well  ventilated,  the  interior  of  the  30 
cylinder  appears  brilliantly  illuminated.  But  if  the  cylinder 
is  exhausted  and  then  filled  with  air  which  is  passed  slowly 
through  a  fine  gauze  of  intensely  heated  platinum  wire, 
so  as  to  burn  up  all  the  floating  dust  particles,  which  are 
mainly  organic,  the  light  will  pass  through  the  cylinder  35 
without  illuminating  the  interior,  which,  viewed  laterally, 
will  appear  as  if  filled  with  a  dense  black  cloud.     If,  now, 


280  ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE 

more  air  is  passed  into  the  cylinder  through  the  heated 
gauze,  but  so  rapidly  that  the  dust  particles  are  not  wholly 
consumed,  a  slight  blue  haze  will  begin  to  appear,  which 
will  gradually  become  a  pure  blue,  equal  to  that  of  a  summer 
5  sky.  If  more  and  more  dust  particles  are  allowed  to  enter, 
the  blue  becomes  paler,  and  gradually  changes  to  the  colour- 
less illumination  of  the  ordinary  air. 

The  explanation  of  these  phenomena  is  that  the  number 
of  dust  particles  in  ordinary  air  is  so  great  that  they  reflect 

lo  abundance  of  light  of  all  wave-lengths,  and  thus  cause  the 
interior  of  the  vessel  containing  them  to  appear  illuminated 
with  white  light.  The  air  which  is  passed  slowly  over 
white-hot  platinum  has  had  the  dust  particles  destroyed, 
thus  showing  that  they  were  almost  wholly  of  organic  origin, 

15  which  is  also  indicated  by  their  extreme  lightness,  causing 
them  to  float  permanently  in  the  atmosphere.  The  dust 
being  thus  got  rid  of,  and  pure  air  being  entirely  transparent, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  cyhnder  to  reflect  the  light,  which  is 
sent  through  its  centre  in  a  beam  of  parallel  rays    so  that 

20 none  of  it  strikes  against  the  sides;  hence  the  inside  of  the 
cylinder  appears  absolutely  dark.  But  when  the  larger 
dust  particles  are  wholly  or  partially  burtit,  so  that  only 
the  very  smallest  fragments  remain,  a  blue  light  appears, 
because  these  are  so  minute  as  to  reflect  chiefly  the  more 

25  refrangible  rays,  which  are  of  shorter  wave-length — those 
at  the  blue  end  of  the  spectrum — and  which  are  thus  scat- 
tered in  all  directions,  while  the  red  and  yellow  rays  pass 
straight  on  as  before. 

We  have  seen  that  the  air  near  the  earth's  surface  is  full 

30  of  rather  coarse  particles  which  reflect  all  the  rays,  and 
which  therefore  produce  no  one  colour.  But  higher  up  the 
particles  necessarily  become  smaller  and  smaller,  since  the 
comparatively  rare  atmosphere  will  support  only  the  very 
smallest    and    lightest.     These    exist    throughout    a    great 

35  thickness  of  air,  perhaps  from  one  mile  to  ten  miles  high  or 
even  more,  and  blue  or  violet  rays  being  reflected  from  the 
innumerable  particles  in  this  great  mass  of  air,  which  is 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  281 

nearly  uniform  in  all  parts  of  the  world  as  regards  the  presence 
of  minute  dust  particles,  produces  the  constant  and  nearly 
uniform  tint  we  call  sky-blue.  A  certain  amount  of  white  or 
yellow  light  is  no  doubt  reflected  from  the  coarser  dust  in 
the  lower  atmosphere,  and  slightly  dilutes  the  blue  and  s 
renders  it  not  quite  so  deep  and  pure  as  it  otherwise  would 
be.  This  is  shown  by  the  increasing  depth  of  the  sky-colour 
when  seen  from  the  tops  of  lofty  mountains,  while  from  the 
still  greater  heights  attained  in  balloons  the  sky  appears 
of  a  blue-black  colour,  the  blue  reflected  from  the  com-  lo 
paratively  small  amount  of  dust  particles  being  seen  against 
the  intense  black  of  stellar  space.  It  is  for  the  same  reason 
that  the  "  Itahan  skies  "  are  of  so  rich  a  blue,  because  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  on  one  side  and  the  snowy  Alps  on  the 
other  do  not  furnish  so  large  a  quantity  of  atmospheric  15 
dust  in  the  lower  strata  of  air  as  in  less  favorably  situated 
countries,  thus  leaving  the  blue  reflected  by  the  more 
uniformly  distributed  fine  dust  of  the  higher  strata  undiluted. 
But  these  Mediterranean  skies  are  surpassed  by  those  of 
the  central  Pacific  ocean,  where,  owing  to  the  small  area  20 
of  land,  the  lower  atmosphere  is  more  free  from  coarse  dust 
than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world. 

If  we  look  at  the  sky  on  a  perfectly  fine  summer's  day,  we 
shall  find  that  the  blue  colour  is  the  most  pure  and  intense 
overhead,  and  when  looking  high  up  in  a  direction  opposite  25 
to  the  sun.     Near  the  horizon  it  is  always  less  bright,  while 
in  the  region  immediately  around  the  sun  it  is  more  or  less 
yellow.     The  reason  of  this  is  that  near  the  horizon  we  look 
through  a  very  great  thickness  of  the  lower  atmosphere, 
which  is  full  of  the  larger  dust  particles  reflecting  white  30 
hght,  and  this  dilutes  the  pure  blue  of  the  higher  atmosphere 
seen  beyond.     And  in  the  vicinity  of  the  sun  a  good  deal 
of  the  blue  light  is  reflected  back  into  space  by  the  finer 
dust,  thus  giving  a  yellowish  tinge  to  that  which  reaches 
us  reflected  chiefly  from  the  coarse  dust  of  the  lower  atmos-  35 
phere.     At  sunset  and  sunrise,  however,  this  last  effect  is 
greatly  intensified,   owing    to   the    great  thickness   of   the 


282  ALFRED   RUSSEL  WALLACE 

strata  of  air  through  which  the  light  reaches  us.  The 
enormous  amount  of  this  dust  is  well  shown  by  the  fact 
that,  then  only,  we  can  look  full  at  the  sun,  even  when 
the  whole  sky  is  free  from  clouds  and  there  is  no  appar- 
5  ent  mist.  But  the  sun 's  rays  then  reach  us  after  having 
passed,  first,  through  an  enormous  thickness  of  the  higher 
strata  of  the  air,  the  minute  dust  of  which  reflects  most  of 
the  blue  rays  away  from  us,  leaving  the  complementary 
yellow  light  to  pass  on.     Then,  the  somewhat  coarser  dust 

lo  reflects  the  green  rays,  leaving  a  more  orange  coloured  light 
to  pass  on;  and  finally  some  of  the  yellow  is  reflected,  leav- 
ing almost  pure  red.  But  owing  to  the  constant  presence 
of  air  currents,  arranging  both  the  dust  and  vapour  in  strata 
of  varying  extent  and  density,  and  of  high  or  low  clouds, 

15  which  both  absorb  and  reflect  the  light  in  varying  degrees, 
we  see  produced  all  those  wondrous  combinations  of  tints 
and  those  gorgeous  everchanging  colours,  which  are  a  con- 
stant source  of  admiration  and  delight  to  all  who  have 
the  advantage  of  an  uninterrupted  view  to  the  west,  and 

20  who  are  accustomed  to  watch  for  these  not  unfrequent 
exhibitions  of  nature's  kaleidoscopic  colour-painting.  With 
every  change  in  the  altitude  of  the  sun  tho^display  changes 
its  character;  and  most  of  all  when  it  has  sunk  below 
the  horizon,  and,  owing  to  the  more  favourable  angles,  a 

25  larger  quantity  of  the  coloured  light  is  reflected  toward  us. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  when  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  cloud.  The  clouds,  so  long  as  the  sun  is  above  the  horizon, 
intercept  much  of  the  light  and  colour;  but,  when  the  great 
luminary  has  passed  away  from  our  direct  vision,  his  light 

30  shines  more  directly  on  the  under  sides  of  all  the  clouds  and 
air  strata  of  different  densities;  a  new  and  more  brilliant 
Hght  flushes  the  western  sky,  and  a  display  of  gorgeous 
ever-changing  tints  occurs  which  are  at  once  the  delight  of 
the  beholder  and  the  despair  of  the  artist.     And  all  this 

35  unsurpassable  glory  we  owe  to — dust! 

A  remarkable  confirmation  of  this  theory  was  given  during 
the  two  or  three  years  after  the  great  eruption  of  Krakatoa, 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  283 

near  Java.  The  volcanic  debris  was  shot  up  from  the 
crater  many  miles  high,  and  the  heavier  portion  of  it  fell 
upon  the  sea  for  several  hundred  miles  around,  and  was 
found  to  be  mainly  composed  of  very  thin  flakes  of  volcanic 
glass.  Much  of  this  was  of  course  ground  to  impalpable  5 
dust  by  the  violence  of  the  discharge,  and  was  carried  up  to  a 
height  of  many  miles.  Here  it  was  caught  by  the  return 
currents  of  air  continually  flowing  northward  and  south- 
ward above  the  equatorial  zone;  and  since,  when  these 
currents  reach  the  temperate  zone,  where  the  surface  rota- 10 
tion  of  the  earth  is  less  rapid,  they  continually  flow  east- 
ward, the  fine  dust  was  thus  carried  at  a  great  altitude  com- 
pletely around  the  earth.  Its  effects  were  traced  some 
months  after  the  eruption  in  the  appearance  of  brilliant 
sunset  glows  of  an  exceptional  character,  often  flushing  15 
with  crimson  the  whole  western  half  of  the  visible  sky. 
These  glows  continued  in  diminishing  splendour  for  about 
three  years;  they  were  seen  all  over  the  temperate  zone; 
and  it  was  calculated  that,  before  they  finally  disappeared, 
some  of  this  fine  dust  must  have  travelled  three  times  round  20 
the  globe. 

The  same  principle  is  thought  to  explain  the  exquisite 
blue  colour  of  the  deep  seas  and  oceans  and  of  many  lakes 
and  springs.  Absolutely  pure  water,  like  pure  air,  is  colour- 
less, but  all  seas  and  lakes,  however  clear  and  translucent,  25 
contain  abundance  of  very  finely  divided  matter,  organic 
or  inorganic,  which,  as  in  the  atmosphere,  reflects  the  blue 
rays  in  such  quantity  as  to  overpower  the  white  or  coloured 
light  reflected  from  the  fewer  and  more  rapidly  sinking 
particles  of  larger  size.  The  oceanic  dust  is  derived  from  30 
many  sources.  Minute  organisms  are  constantly  dying  near 
the  surface,  and  their  skeletons,  or  fragments  of  them,  fall 
slowly  to  the  bottom.  The  mud  brought  down  by  rivers, 
though  it  cannot  be  traced  on  the  ocean  floor  mor(^  than 
about  150  miles  from  land,  yet  no  doubt  furnishes  many  35 
particles  of  organic  matter  which  are  carried  by  surface 
currents  to  enormous  distances  and  are  ultimately  dissolved 


284  ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE 

before  they  reach  the  bottom.  A  more  important  source 
of  finely  divided  matter  is  to  be  found  in  volcanic  dust  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  Krakatoa,  may  remain  for  years  in  the 
atmosphere,  but  which  must  ultimately  fall  upon  the  sur- 
5  face  of  the  earth  and  ocean.  This  can  be  traced  in  all  the 
deep-sea  oozes.  Finally  there  is  meteoric  dust,  which  is 
continually  falHng  to  the  surface  of  the  earth,  but  in  such 
minute  quantities  and  in  such  a  finely-divided  state  that 
it  can  be  detected  only  in  the  oozes  of  the  deepest  oceans, 

lo  where  both  inorganic  and  organic  debris  is  almost  absent. 

The  blue  of  the  ocean  varies  in  different  parts  from  a  pure 

blue  somewhat  lighter  than  that  of  the  sky,  as  seen  about  the 

northern  tropic  in  the  Atlantic,  to  a  deep  indigo  tint,  as  seen 

in  the  north  temperate  portions  of  the  same  ocean:   owing, 

1 5  probably,  to  differences  in  the  nature,  quantity,  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  solid  matter  which  causes  the  colour.  The 
Mediterranean,  and  the  deeper  Swiss  lakes,  are  also  a  blue 
of  various  tints,  due  also  to  the  presence  of  suspended  matter, 
which  Professor  Tyndall  thought  might  be  so  fine  that  it 

2o  would  require  ages  of  quiet  subsidence  to  reach  the  bottom. 
All  the  evidence  goes  to  show,  therefore,  that  the  exquisite 
blue  tints  of  sky  and  ocean,  as  well  as  all-4he  sunset  hues 
of  sky  and  cloud,  of  mountain  peak  and  Alpine  snows,  are 
due  to  the  finer  particles   of  that  very  dust  which,  in  its 

25  coarser  forms,  we  find  so  annoying  and  even  dangerous. 

But  if  this  production  of  colour  and  beauty  were  the  only 
useful  function  of  dust,  some  persons  might  be  disposed  to 
dispense  with  it  in  order  to  escape  its  less  agreeable  effects. 
It  has,  however,  been  recently  discovered  that  dust  has 

30 another  part  to  play  in  nature;  a  part  so  important  that  it 
is  doubtful  whether  we  could  even  live  without  it.  To  the 
presence  of  dust  in  the  higher  atmosphere  we  owe  the  for- 
mation of  mists,  clouds,  and  gentle  beneficial  rains,  instead 
of  water  spouts  and  destructive  torrents. 

35  It  is  barely  twenty  years  ago  since  the  discovery  was  made, 
first  in  France  by  CouHer  and  Mascart,  but  more  thoroughly 
worked  out  by  Mr.  John  Aitken  in  1880.     He  found  that  if 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OP^  DUST  285 

a  jet  of  steam  is  admitted  into  two  large  glass  receivers, — 
one  filled  with  ordinary  air,  the  other  with  air  which  has 
been  filtered  through  cotton  wool  so  as  to  keep  back  all 
particles  of  solid  matter, — the  first  will  be  instantly  filled 
with  condensed  vapour  in  the  usual  cloudy  form,  while  the  s 
other  vessel  will  remain  quite  transparent.  Another  experi- 
ment was  made,  more  nearly  reproducing  what  occurs  in 
nature.  Some  water  was  placed  in  the  two  vessels  pre- 
pared as  before.  When  the  water  had  evaporated  sufficiently 
to  saturate  the  air  the  vessels  were  slightly  cooled;  a  dense  lo 
cloud  was  at  once  formed  in  the  one  while  the  other  remained 
quite  clear.  These  experiments,  and  many  others,  show  that 
the  mere  cooling  of  vapour  in  air  will  not  condense  it  into 
mist  clouds  or  rain,  unless  particles  of  solid  matter  are  present 
to  form  nuclei  upon  which  condensation  can  begin.  The  15 
density  of  the  cloud  is  proportionate  to  the  number  of  the 
particles;  hence  the  fact  that  the  steam  issuing  from  the 
safety-valve  or  the  chimney  of  a  locomotive  forms  a  dense 
white  cloud,  shows  that  the  air  is  really  full  of  dust  particles, 
most  of  which  are  microscopic  but  none  the  less  serving  20 
as  centres  of  condensation  for  the  vapour.  Hence,  if  there 
were  no  dust  in  the  air,  escaping  steam  would  remain  in- 
visible; there  would  be  no  cloud  in  the  sky;  and  the  vapour 
in  the  atmosphere,  constantly  accumulating  through  evapo- 
ration from  seas  and  oceans  and  from  the  earth's  surface,  25 
would  have  to  find  some  other  means  of  returning  to  its 
source. 

One  of  these  modes  would  be  the  deposition  of  dew,  which 
is  itself  an  illustration  of  the  principle  that  vapour  requires 
solid  or  liquid  surfaces  to  condense  upon;  dew  forms  most 30 
readily  and  abundantly  on  grass,  on  account  of  the  numerous 
centres  of  condensation  this  affords.  Dew^,  however,  is 
now  formed  only  on  clear  cold  nights  after  warm  or  moist 
days.  The  air  near  the  surface  is  warm  and  contains  much 
vapour,  though  below  the  point  of  saturation.  But  the  35 
innumerable  points  and  extensive  surfaces  of  grass  radiate 
heat  quickly,  and  becoming  cool,  lower  the  temperature  of 


286  ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE 

the  adjacent  air,  which  then  reaches  saturation  point  and 
condenses  the  contained  atmosphere  on  the  grass.  Hence, 
if  the  atmosphere  at  the  earth's  surface  became  super- 
saturated with  aqueous  vapour,  dew  would  be  continuously 
5  deposited,  especially  on  every  form  of  vegetation,  the  result 
being  that  everything,  including  our  clothing,  would  be 
constantly  dripping  wet.  If  there  were  absolutely  no  par- 
ticles of  solid  matter  in  the  upper  atmosphere,  all  the  mois- 
ture would  be  returned  to  the  earth  in  the  form  of  dense 

lo  mists,  and  frequent  and  copious  dews,  which  in  forests 
would  form  torrents  of  rain  by  the  rapid  condensation  on 
the  leaves.  But  if  we  suppose  that  solid  particles  were 
occasionally  carried  higher  up  through  violent  winds  or 
tornadoes,    then    on    those    occasions    the    super-saturated 

IS  atmosphere  would  condense  rapidly  upon  them,  and  while 
falling  would  gather  almost  all  the  moisture  in  the  atmos- 
phere in  that  locality,  resulting  in  masses  or  sheets  of  water, 
which  would  be  so  ruinously  destructive  by  the  mere  weight 
and  impetus  of  their  fall  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  they 

20  would  not  render  the  earth  almost  wholly  uninhabitable. 

The  chief  mode  of  discharging  the  atmospheric  vapour 

in  the  absense  of  dust  would,  however,  b^by  contact  with 

the   higher   slopes   of   all   mountain    ranges.     Atmospheric 

vapour,  being  lighter  than  air,  would  accumulate  in  enormous 

25  quantities  in  the  upper  strata  of  the  atmosphere,  which 
would  be  always  super-saturated  and  ready  to  condense 
upon  any  solid  or  liquid  surfaces.  But  the  quantity  of  land 
comprised  in  the  upper  half  of  all  the  mountains  of  the 
world  is  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  total  surface  of  the  globe, 

30  and  this  would  lead  to  very  disastrous  results.  The  air  in 
contact  with  the  higher  mountain  slopes  would  rapidly 
discharge  its  water,  which  would  run  down  the  mountain 
sides  in  torrents.  This  condensation  on  every  side  of  the 
mountains  would  leave  a  partial  vacuum  which  would  set 

35  up  currents  from  every  direction  to  restore  the  equilibrium, 
thus  bringing  in  more  super-saturated  air  to  suffer  conden- 
sation  and  add  its  supply  of  water,  again  increasing  the 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  287 

in-draught  of  more  air.  The  result  would  be  that  winds 
would  be  constantly  blowing  toward  every  mountain  range 
from  all  directions,  keeping  up  the  condensation  and  dis- 
charging, day  and  night  and  from  one  year's  end  to  another, 
an  amount  of  water  equal  to  that  which  falls  during  s 
the  heaviest  tropical  rains.  All  of  the  rain  that  now 
falls  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth  and  ocean,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  desert  areas,  would  then  fall  only 
on  rather  high  mountains  or  steep  isolated  hills,  tearing  down 
their  sides  in  huge  torrents,  cutting  deep  ravines,  and  ren-  lo 
dering  all  growth  of  vegetation  impossible.  The  mountains 
would  therefore  be  so  devasted  as  to  be  uninhabitable, 
and  would  be  equally  incapable  of  supporting  either  vege- 
table or  animal  life. 

But  this  constant  condensation  on  the  mountains  would  15 
probably  check  the  deposit  on  the  lowlands  in  the  form  of 
dew,  because  the  continual  up-draught  toward  the  higher 
slopes  would  withdraw  almost  the  whole  of  the  vapour  as  it 
arose  from  the  oceans,  and  other  water-surfaces,  and  thus 
leave  the  lower  strata  over  the  plains  almost  or  quite  dry.  20 
And  if  this  were  the  case  there  would  be  no  vegetation, 
and  therefore  no  animal  life,  on  the  plains  and  lowlands, 
which  would  thus  be  all  arid  deserts  cut  through  by  the 
great  rivers  formed  by  the  meeting  together  of  the  innu- 
merable torrents  from  the  mountains.  25 

Now,  although  it  may  not  be  possible  to  determine  with 
perfect  accuracy  what  would  happen  under  the  supposed 
condition  of  the  atmosphere,  it  is  certain  that  the  total 
absence  of  dust  would  so  fundamentally  change  the  meteor- 
ology of  our  globe  as,  not  improbably,  to  render  it  unin-30 
habitable  by  man,  and  equally  unsuitable  for  the  larger 
portion  of  its  existing  animal  and  vegetable  life. 

Let  us  now  briefly  summarise  what  we  owe  to  the  univer- 
sality of  dust,  and  esi)ecially  to  that  most  fmely  divided 
portion  of  it  which  is  constantly  present  in  the  atmosphere  35 
up  to  the  height  of  many  miles.     First  of  all  it  gives  us  the 
pure  blue  of  the  sky,  one  of  the  most  exquisitely  beautiful 


288  ALFRED  RUSSEL  WALLACE 

colours  in  nature.  It  gives  us  also  the  glories  of  the  sunset 
and  the  sunrise,  and  all  those  brilliant  hues  seen  in  high 
mountain  regions.  Half  the  beauty  of  the  world  would 
vanish  with  the  absence  of  dust.  But,  what  is  far  more 
5  important  than  the  colour  of  sky  and  beauty  of  sunset,  dust 
gives  us  also  diffused  daylight,  or  skylight,  that  most  equable, 
and  soothing,  and  useful,  of  all  illuminating  agencies. 
Without  dust  the  sky  would  appear  absolutely  black,  and 
the   stars   would   be   visible   even    at    noonday.     The   sky 

lo  itself  would  therefore  give  us  no  light.  We  should  have 
bright  glaring  sunlight  or  intensely  dark  shadows,  with 
hardly  any  half-tones.  From  this  cause  alone  the  world 
would  be  so  totally  different  from  what  it  is  that  all  vegetable 
and  animal  life  would  probably  have  de^'cloped  into  very 

IS  different  forms,  and  even  our  own  organisation  would  have 
been  modified  in  order  that  we  might  enjoy  life  in  a  world  of 
such  harsh  and  violent  contrasts. 

In  our  houses  we  should  have  little  light  except  when  the 
sun  shone  directly  into  them,  and    even    then    every   spot 

20  out  of  its  direct  rays  would  be  completely  dark,  except  for 
light  reflected  from  the  walls.  It  would  be  necessary  to 
have  windows  all  around  and  the  walls  all  wtite;  and  on  the 
north  side  of  every  house  a  high  white  wall  would  have  to  be 
built  to  reflect  the  light  and  prevent  that  side  from  being  in 

25  total  darkness.  Even  then  we  should  have  to  live  in  a 
perpetual  glare,  or  shut  out  the  sun  altogether  and  use 
artificial  light  as  being  a  far  superior  article. 

Much  more  important  would  be  the  effects  of  a  dust- 
free  atmosphere  in  banishing  clouds,  or  mist,  or  the  "  gentle 

30  rain  of  heaven,"  and  in  giving  us  in  their  place  perpetual 
sunshine,  desert  lowlands,  and  mountains  devastated  by 
unceasing  floods  and  raging  torrents,  so  as,  apparently,  to 
render  all  life  on  the  earth  impossible. 

There  are  a  few  other  phenomena,  apparently  due  to  the 

35  same  general  causes,  which  may  here  be  referred  to.  Every- 
one must  have  noticed  the  dilTerence  in  the  atmospheric 
effects  and  general  character  of  the  light  in  spring  and  autumn, 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  289 

at  times  when  the  days  are  of  the  same  length,  and  con- 
sequently when  the  sun  has  the  same  altitude  at  correspond- 
ing hours.  In  spring  we  have  a  bluer  sky  and  greater 
transparency  of  the  atmosphere;  in  autumn,  even  on  very 
fine  days,  there  is  always  a  kind  of  yellowish  haze,  resulting  5 
in  a  want  of  clearness  in  the  air  and  purity  of  colour  in  the 
sky.  These  phenomena  are  quite  intelligible  when  we 
consider  that  during  winter  less  dust  is  formed,  and  more 
is  brought  down  to  the  earth  by  rain  and  snow,  resulting 
in  the  transparent  atmosphere  of  spring,  while  exactly  lo 
opposite  conditions  during  summer  bring  about  the  mellow 
autumnal  light.  Again,  the  well-known  beneficial  effects 
of  rain  on  vegetation,  as  compared  with  any  amount  of 
artificial  watering,  though,  no  doubt,  largely  due  to  the 
minute  quantity  of  ammonia  which  the  rain  brings  down  15 
with  it  from  the  air,  must  yet  be  partly  derived  from  the 
organic  or  mineral  particles  which  serve  as  the  nuclei  of 
every  raindrop,  and  which,  being  so  minute,  are  the  more 
readily  dissolved  in  the  soil  and  appropriated  as  nourish- 
ment by  the  roots  of  plants.  20 

It  will  be  observed  that  all  these  beneficial  effects  of  dust 
are  due  to  its  presence  in  such  quantities  as  are  produced 
by  natural  causes,  since  both  gentle  showers  as  well  as  ample 
rains  and  deep  blue  skies  are  present  throughout  the  vast 
equatorial  forest  districts,  where  dust-forming  agencies  25 
seem  to  be  at  a  minimum.  But  in  all  densely-populated 
countries  there  is  an  enormous  artificial  production  of  dust — 
from  our  ploughed  fields,  from  our  roads  and  streets,  where 
dust  is  continually  formed  by  the  iron-shod  hoofs  of  innum- 
erable horses,  but  chiefly  from  our  enormous  combustion  of  30 
fuel  pouring  into  the  air  volumes  of  smoke  charged  with 
unconsumed  particles  of  carbon.  This  superabundance 
of  dust,  probably  many  limes  greater  than  that  which  would 
be  produced  under  the  more  natural  conditions  which  vpre- 
vailed  when  our  country  was  more  thinly  populated,  must  35 
almost  certainly  produce  some  effect  on  our  climate;  and 
the  particular  effect  it  seems  calculated  to  produce  is  the 


290  ALFRED  EUSSEL  WALLACE 

increase  of  cloud  and  fog,  but  not  necessarily  any  increase 
of  rain.  Rain  depends  on  the  supply  of  aqueous  vapour 
by  evaporation;  on  temperature,  which  determines  the 
dew  point;  and  on  changes  in  barometric  pressure,  which 
S  determine  the  winds.  There  is  probably  always  and  every- 
where enough  atmospheric  dust  to  serve  as  centres  of 
condensation  at  considerable  altitudes,  and  thus  to  initiate 
rainfall  when  the  other  conditions  are  favourable;  but  the 
presence  of  increased  quantities  of  dust  at  the  lower  levels 

lomust  lead  to  the  formation  of  denser  clouds,  although  the 
minute  water-vesicles  cannot  descend  as  rain,  because,  as 
they  pass  down  into  warmer  and  dryer  strata  of  air,  they 
are  again  evaporated. 

Now,  there  is  much  evidence  to  show  that  there  has  been 

15  a  considerable  increase  in  the  amount  of  cloud,  and  conse- 
quent decrease  in  the  amount  of  sunshine,  in  all  parts  of 
our  country.  It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  England  was  a  wine-producing  country,  and  this 
implies  more  sunshine  than  we  have  now.     Sunshine  has 

20  a  double  effect,  in  heating  the  surface  soil  and  thus  causing 
more  rapid  growth,  besides  its  direct  effect  in  ripening  the 
fruit.  This  is  well  seen  in  Canada,  where,  tiotwithstanding 
a  six  months'  winter  of  extreme  severity,  vines  are  grown 
as  bushes  in  the  open  ground,  and  produce  fruit  equal  to 

25  that  of  our  ordinary  greenhouses.  Some  years  back  one  of 
our  gardening  periodicals  obtained  from  gardeners  of  forty 
or  fifty  years'  experience  a  body  of  facts  clearly  indicating  a 
comparatively  recent  change  of  climate.  It  was  stated 
that  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  especially  in  the  north, 

30  fruits  were  formerly  grown  successfully  and  of  good  quahty 
in  gardens  where  they  cannot  be  grown  now;  and  this 
occurred  in  places  sufficiently  removed  from  manufacturing 
centres  to  be  unaffected  by  any  direct  deleterious  influence 
of  smoke.     But  an  increase  of  cloud,  and  consequent  diminu- 

35  tion  of  sunshine,  would  produce  just  such  a  result ;  and  this 
increase  is  almost  certain  to  have  occurred  owing  to  the 
enormously    increased    amount    of    dust    thrown   into   the 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DUST  291 

atmosphere  as  our  country  has  become  more  densely  pop- 
ulated, and  especially  owing  to  the  vast  increase  of  our 
smoke-producing  manufactories.  It  seems  highly  probable, 
therefore,  that  to  increase  the  wealth  of  our  capitalist- 
manufacturers  we  are  allowing  the  climate  of  our  whole  s 
country  to  be  greatly  deteriorated  in  a  way  which  diminishes 
both  its  productiveness  and  its  beauty,  thus  injuriously 
affecting  the  enjoyment  and  the  health  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion, since  sunshine  is  itself  an  essential  condition  of  healthy 
life.  When  this  fact  is  thoroughly  realised  we  shall  surely  lo 
put  a  stop  to  such  a  reckless  and  wholly  unnecessary  pro- 
duction of  injurious  smoke  and  dust. 

In  conclusion,  we  find  that  the  much-abused  and  all- 
pervading  dust,  which,  when  too  freely  produced,  deteri- 
orates our  climate  and  brings  us  dirt,  discomfort,  and  15 
even  disease,  is,  nevertheless,  under  natural  conditions, 
an  essential  portion  of  the  economy  of  nature.  It  gives 
us  much  of  the  beauty  of  natural  scenery,  as  due  to  varying 
atmospheric  effects  of  sky,  and  cloud,  and  sunset  tints, 
and  thus  renders  life  more  enjoyable;  while,  as  an  essential  20 
condition  of  diffused  daylight  and  of  moderate  rainfalls 
combined  with  a  dry  atmosphere,  it  appears  to  be  absolutely 
necessary  for  our  existence  upon  the  earth,  perhaps  even 
for  the  very  development  of  terrestrial,  as  opposed  to 
aquatic  life.  The  overwhelming  importance  of  the  small  25 
things,  and  even  of  the  despised  things,  of  our  world  has 
'never,  perhaps,  been  so  strikingly  brought  home  to  us  as 
in  these  recent  investigations  into  the  wide-spread  and  far- 
reaching  beneficial  influences  of  Atmospheric  Dust. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ANTS  i 

Henry  David-  Thoreau 

One  day  when  I  went  out  to  my  wood-pile,  or  rather 
my  pile  of  stumps,  I  observed  two  large  ants,  the  one  red, 
the  other  much  larger,  nearly  half  an  inch  long,  and  black, 
fiercely  contending  with  one  another.  Having  once  got 
5  hold  they  never  let  go,  but  struggled  and  wrestled  and  rolled 
on  the  chips  incessantly.  Looking  farther,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  that  the  chips  were  covered  with  such  com- 
batants, that  it  was  not  a  duellum,  but  a  belliim,  a  war 
between  two  races  of  ants,  the  red  always  pitted  against 

lothe  black,  and  frequently  two  red  ones  to  one  black.  The 
legions  of  these  Myrmidons  covered  all  the  hills  and  vales 
in  my  wood-yard,  and  the  ground  was  already  strewn  with 
the  dead  and  dying,  both  red  and  black.  It  was  the  only 
battle  which  I  have  ever  w^itnessed,  the  ocly  battlefield  I 

IS  ever  trod  while  the  battle  was  raging;  internecine  war; 
the  red  republicans  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  black  impe- 
rialists on  the  other.  On  every  side  they  were  engaged 
in  deadly  combat,  yet  without  any  noise  that  I  could  hear, 
and  human  soldiers  never  fought  so  resolutely.     I  watched 

20  a  couple  that  were  fast  locked  in  each  other's  embraces,  in 
a  Httle  sunny  valley  amid  the  chips,  now  at  noon-day  pre- 
pared to  fight  till  the  sun  went  down,  or  life  went  out. 
The  smaller  red  champion  had  fastened  himself  like  a  vice 
to  his  adversary's  front,  and  through  all  the  turnbhngs  on 

25  that  field  never  for  an  instant  ceased  to  gnaw  at  one  of  his 
feelers  near  the  root,  having  already  caused  the  other  to 
go  by  the  board;    while  the  stronger  black  one  dashed  him 

1  From  Chapter  XII  of  "  Walden,"  1S54. 

292 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ANTS  293 

from  side  to  side,  and,  as  I  saw  on  looking  nearer,  had 
already  divested  him  of  several  of  his  members.  They 
fought  with  more  pertinacity  than  bull-dogs.  Neither 
manifested  the  least  disposition  to  retreat.  It  was  evident 
that  their  battle-cry  was  Conquer  or  Die.  In  the  mean-  S 
while  there  came  along  a  single  red  ant  on  the  hill-side  of 
this  valley,  evidently  full  of  excitement,  who  either  had 
despatched  his  foe,  or  had  not  yet  taken  part  in  the  battle; 
probably  the  latter,  for  he  had  lost  none  of  his  hmbs;  whose 
mother  had  charged  him  to  return  with  his  shield  or  upon  lo 
it.  Or  perchance  he  was  some  Achilles,  who  had  nourished 
his  wrath  apart,  and  had  now  come  to  avenge  or  rescue  his 
Patroclus.'  He  saw  this  unequal  combat  from  afar, — 
for  the  blacks  were  nearly  twice  the  size  of  the  reds;  he 
drew  near  with  rapid  pace  till  he  stood  on  his  guard  within  is 
half  an  inch  of  the  combatants;  then,  watching  his  oppor- 
tunity, he  sprang  upon  the  black  warrior,  and  commenced 
his  operations  near  the  root  of  his  right  foreleg,  leaving  the 
foe  to  select  among  his  own  members;  and  so  there  were 
three  united  for  life,  as  if  a  new  kind  of  attraction  had  been  20 
invented  which  put  all  other  locks  and  cements  to  shame. 
I  should  not  have  wondered  by  this  time  to  find  that  they 
had  their  respective  musical  bands  stationed  on  some 
eminent  chip,  and  playing  their  national  airs  the  while, 
to  excite  the  slow  and  cheer  the  dying  combatants.  1 25 
was  myself  excited  somewhat  even  as  if  they  had  been  men. 
The  more  you  think  of  it,  the  less  the  difference.  And 
certainly  there  is  not  the  fight  recorded  in  Concord  his- 
tory, at  least,  if  in  the  history  of  America,  that  will  bear  a 
moment's  comparison  with  this,  whether  for  the  numbers  30 
engaged  in  it,  or  for  the  patriotism  and  heroism  displayed. 
For  numbers  and  for  carnage  it  was  an  Austerlitz  or  Dresden. 
Concord  Fight!  Two  killed  on  the  patriots'  side,  and  Luther 
Elanchard  wounded!  Why  here  every  ant  was  a  Buttricic, — 
"Fire!    for  God's  sake,  fire!" — and  thousands  shared  the 35 

1  Patroclus,  in  Homer's  Iliad,   was  the  friend  whose    death  at  the 
hands  of  the  Trojans  roused  Achilles  to  action. 


294  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

fate  of  Davis  and  Hosmer.  There  was  not  one  nireling  there. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  principle  they  fought  for,  as 
much  as  our  ancestors,  and  not  to  avoid  a  three-penny  tax 
on  their  tea;  and  the  results  of  this  battle  will  be  as  important 
5  and  memorable  to  those  whom  it  concerns  as  those  of  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  at  least. 

I  took  up  the  chip  on  which  the  three  I  have  particularly 
described  were  struggHng,  carried  it  into  my  house,  and 
placed  it  under  a  tumbler  on  my  window-sill,  in  order  to 

losee  the  issue.  Holding  a  microscope  to  the  first-mentioned 
red  ant,  I  saw  that,  though  he  was  assiduously  gnawing  at 
the  near  fore-leg  of  his  enemy,  having  severed  his  remain- 
ing feeler,  his  own  breast  was  all  torn  away,  exposing  what 
vitals  he  had  there  to  the  jaws  of  the  black  warrior,  whose 

IS  breast-plate  was  apparently  too  thick  for  him  to  pierce; 
and  the  dark  carbuncles  of  the  sufferer's  eyes  shone  with 
ferocity  such  as  war  only  could  excite.  They  struggled 
half  an  hour  longer  under  the  tumbler,  and  when  I  looked 
again  the  black  soldier  had  severed  the  heads  of  his  foes 

20  from  their  bodies,  and  the  still  living  heads  were  hanging 
on  either  side  of  him  like  ghastly  trophies  at  his  saddle- 
bow, still  apparently  as  firmly  fastened  as  ever,  and  he 
was  endeavoring  with  feeble  struggles,  being  without 
feelers  and  with  only  the  remnant  of  a  leg,  and  I  know 

25  not  how  many  other  wounds,  to  divest  himself  of  them; 
which  at  length,  after  half  an  hour  more,  he  accomplished. 
I  raised  the  glass,  and  he  went  off  over  the  window-sill  in 
that  crippled  state.  Whether  he  finally  survived  that  com- 
bat, and  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  some  Hotel  des 

3oInvaHdes,  I  do  not  know;  but  I  thought  that  his  industry 
would  not  be  worth  much  thereafter.  I  never  learned 
which  party  was  victorious,  nor  the  cause  of  the  war;  but 
I  felt  for  the  rest  of  that  day  as  if  I  had  had  my  feelings 
excited    and     harrowed    by    witnessing    the     struggle,   the 

35  ferocity  and  carnage,  of  a  human  battle  before  my  door. 

Kirby  and  Spence  tell  us  that  the  battles  of  ants  have 

long  l^een  celebrated  and  the  date  of  them  recorded,  though 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  ANTS  205 

they  say  that  Ilubcr  is  the  only  modern  author  who  appears 
to  have  witnessed  them.  "  ^neas  Sylvius,"  say  they, 
"  after  giving  a  very  circumstantial  account  of  one  con- 
tested with  great  obstinacy  by  a  great  and  small  species 
on  the  trunk  of  a  pear  tree,"  adds  that  "  '  This  action  was  5 
fought  in  the  pontificate  of  Eugenius  the  Fourth,  in  the 
presence  of  Nicholas  Pistoriensis,  an  eminent  lawyer,  who 
related  the  whole  history  of  the  battle  with  the  greatest 
fidelity.'  A  similar  engagement  between  great  and  small 
ants  is  recorded  by  Olaus  Magnus,  in  which  the  small  ones  lo 
being  victorious,  are  said  to  have  buried  the  bodies  of  their 
own  soldiers,  but  left  those  of  their  giant  enemies  a  prey 
to  the  birds.  This  event  happened  previous  to  the  expulsion 
of  the  tyrant  Christiern  the  Second  from  Sweden."  The 
battle  which  I  witnessed  took  place  in  the  Presidency  of  15 
Polk,  five  years  before  the  passage  of  Webster's  Fugitive- 
Slave  Bill. 


A  WIND-STORM  IN  THE  FORESTS  ^ 

John  Muir 

The  mountain  winds,  like  the  dew  and  rain,  sunshine  and 
snow,  are  measured  and  bestowed  with  love  on  the  forests, 
to  develop  their  strength  and  beauty.  However  restricted 
the  scope  of  other  forest  influences,  that  of  the  winds  is 
5  universal.  The  snow  bends  and  trims  the  upper  forests 
every  winter,  the  lightning  strikes  a  single  tree  here  and  there, 
while  avalanches  mow  down  thousands  at  a  swoop  as  a 
gardener  trims  out  a  bed  of  flowers.  But  the  winds  go  to 
every  tree,  fingering  every  leaf  and  branch  and  furrowed 

lobole;  not  one  is  forgotten:  the  Mountain  Pine  towering 
with  outstretched  arms  on  the  rugged  buttresses  of  the 
icy  peaks,  the  lowliest  and  most  retiring  tenant  of  the 
dells— they  seek  and  find  them  all,  caressing  them  tenderly, 
bending  them  in  lusty  exercise,  stimulating  their  growth, 

15  plucking  off  a  leaf  or  limb  as  required,  or  removing  an  entire 
tree  or  grove,  now  whispering  and  cooing  through  the 
branches  like  a  sleepy  child,  now  roaring  like  the  ocean; 
the  winds  blessing  the  forests,  the  forests  the  winds,  with 
ineffable  beauty  and  harmony  as  the  sure  result. 

20  After  one  has  seen  pines  six  feet  in  diameter  bending  like 
grasses  before  a  mountain  gale,  and  ever  and  anon  some 
giant  falling  with  a  crash  that  shakes  the  hills,  it  seems 
astonishing  that  any,  save  the  lowest  thick-set  trees,  could 
ever  have  found  a  period  sufficiently  stormless  to  establish 

25  themselves;  or  once  established,  that  they  should  not  sooner 
or  later  have  been  blown  down.     But  when  the  storm  is 

'  From  "  The  Mountains  of  California,"  copyright   1S94.     Printed 
here  by  permission  of  the  Century  Company. 

296 


A  WINU-8T()KM  IN  THE  FORESTS  297 

over,  and  we  behold  the  same  forests  tranquil  again,  tower- 
ing fresh  and  unscathed  in  erect  majesty,  and  consider  what 
centuries  of  storms  have  fallen  upon  them  since  they  were 
first  planted:  hail,  to  break  the  tender  seedUngs;  lightning, 
to  scorch  and  shatter;  snow,  winds,  and  avalanches,  to  5 
crush  and  overwhelm, — -while  the  manifest  result  of  all 
this  wild  storm-culture  is  the  glorious  perfection  we  behold : 
then  faith  in  Nature's  forestry  is  estabhshed,  and  we  cease 
to  deplore  the  violence  of  her  most  destructive  gales,  or  of 
any  other  storm  implement  whatsoever.  10 

There  are  two  trees  in  the  Sierra  forests  that  are  never 
blown  down,  so  long  as  they  continue  in  sound  health. 
These  are  the  Juniper  and  the  Dwarf  Pine  of  the  summit 
peaks.  Their  stiff,  crooked  roots  grip  the  storm-beaten 
ledges  like  eagles'  claws;  while  their  Hthc,  cord  like  branches  15 
bend  round  compliantly,  offering  but  slight  holds  for  winds, 
however  violent.  The  other  alpine  conifers — the  Needle 
Pine,  Mountain  Pine,  Two-leaved  Pine,  and  Hemlock 
Spruce — are  never  thinned  out  by  this  agent  to  any  destruc- 
tive extent,  on  account  of  their  admirable  toughness  and  20 
the  closeness  of  their  growth.  In  general  the  same  is  true 
of  the  giants  of  the  lower  zones.  The  kingly  Sugar  Pine, 
towering  aloft  to  a  height  of  more  than  two  hundred  feet, 
offers  a  fine  mark  to  storm- winds;  but  it  is  not  densely 
foliaged,  and  its  long  hori/A)ntal  arms  swing  round  com-  25 
pliantly  in  the  blast,  like  tresses  of  green,  fluent  algae  in  a 
brook:  while  the  Silver  Firs  in  most  places  keep  their  ranks 
well  together  in  united  strength. 

The  Yellow  or  Silver  Pine  is  more  frequently  overturned 
than  any  other  tree  on  the  Sierra,  because  its  leaves  and 30 
branches  form  a  larger  mass  in  proportion  to  its  height; 
while  in  many  j^laces  it  is  planted  sparsely,  leaving  open 
lanes  through  which  storms  may  enter  with  full  force. 
Furthermore,  because  it  is  distributed  along  the  Ipwer 
portion  of  the  range,  which  was  the  first  to  be  left  bare  on  35 
the  breaking  up  of  the  ice-sheet  at  the  close  of  the  glacial 
winter,  the  soil  it  is  growing  upon  has  been  longer  exposed 


298  JOHN  MUIR 

to  post-glacial  weathering,  and  consequently  is  in  a  more 
crumbling,  decayed  condition  than  the  fresher  soils  farther 
up  the  range,  and  therefore  offers  a  less  secure  anchorage 
for  the  roots.  While  exploring  the  forest  zones  of  Mount 
5  Shasta,  I  discovered  the  path  of  a  hurricane  strewn  with 
thousands  of  pines  of  this  species.  'Great  and  small  had 
been  uprooted  or  wrenched  off  by  sheer  force,  making  a 
clean  gap,  like  that  made  by  a  snow  avalanche..  But  hur- 
ricanes capable  of  doing  this  class  of  work  are  rare  in  the 

I o Sierra;  and  when  we  have  explored  the  forests  from  one 
extremity  of  the  range  to  the  other,  we  are  compelled  to 
believe  that  they  are  the  most  beautiful  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  however  we  may  regard  the  agents  that  have  made 
them  so. 

15  There  is  always  something  deeply  exciting,  not  only  in  the 
sounds  of  winds  in  the  woods,  which  exert  more  or  less 
influence  over  every  mind,  but  in  their  varied  water-like 
flow  as  manifested  by  the  movements  of  the  trees,  espe- 
cially those  of  the  conifers.     By  no  other  trees  are  they 

20 rendered  so  extensively  and  impressively  visible;  not  even 
by  the  lordly  tropic  palms  or  tree-ferns  responsive  to  the 
gentlest  breeze.  The  waving  of  a  forest  of^he  giant  Sequoias 
is  indescribably  impressive  and  sublime;  but  the  pines 
seem  to  me  the  best  interpreters  of  winds.     They  are  mighty 

25  waving  golden-rods,  ever  in  tune,  singing  and  writing  wind- 
music  all  their  long  century  lives.  Little,  however,  of  this 
noble  tree- waving  and  tree-music  will  you  see  or  hear  in 
the  strictly  alpine  portion  of  the  forests.  The  burly  Juniper 
whose  girth  sometimes  more  than  equals  its,  height,  is  about 

30  as  rigid  as  the  rocks  on  which  it  grows.  The  slender  lash- 
like sprays  of  the  Dwarf  Pine  stream  out  in  wavering  ripples, 
but  the  tallest  and  slenderest  are  far  too  unyielding  to  wave 
even  in  the  heaviest  gales.  They  only  shake  in  quick, 
short  vibrations.     The  Hemlock  Spruce,  however,  and  the 

35  Mountain  Pine,  and  some  of  the  tallest  thickets  of  the  Two- 
leaved  species,  bow  in  storms  with  considerable  scope  and 
gracefulness.     But  it  is  only  in  the  lower  and  middle  zones 


A  WIND-STORM  IN  THE  FORESTS  299 

that  the  meeting  of  winds  and  woods  is  to  be  seen  in  all  its 
grandeur. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  exhilarating  storms  I  ever 
enjoyed  in  the  Sierra  occurred  in  December,  1874,  when  I 
happened  to  be  exploring  one  of  the  tributary  valleys  of  the  s 
Yuba  River.  The  sky  and  the  ground  and  the  trees  had  been 
thoroughly  rain-washed  and  were  dry  again.  The  day  was 
intensely  pure:  one  of  those  incomparable  bits  of  Cali- 
fornia winter,  warm  and  balmy  and  full  of  white  sparkling 
sunshine,  redolent  of  all  the  purest  influences  of  the  spring,  10 
and  at  the  same  time  enlivened  with  one  of  the  most  bracing 
wind-storms  conceivable.  Instead  of  camping  out,  as  I 
usually  do,  I  then  chanced  to  be  stopping  at  the  house  of  a 
friend.  But  when  the  storm  began  to  sound,  I  lost  no  time 
in  pushing  out  into  the  woods  to  enjoy  it.  "For  on  such  15 
occasions  Nature  has  always  something  rare  to  show  us, 
and  the  danger  to  life  and  limb  is  hardly  greater  than  one 
would  experience  crouching  deprecatingly  beneath  a  roof. 

It  was  still  early  morning  when  I  found  myself  fairly 
adrift.     Delicious   sunshine   came   pouring   over   the   hills,  20 
lighting  the  tops  of  the  pines,  and  setting  free  a  steam  of 
summery  fragrance  that  contrasted  strangely  with  the  wild 
tones  of  the  storm.     The  air  was  mottled  with  pine-tassels 
and  bright  green  plumes,  that  went  flashing  past  in  the  sun- 
light like  birds  pursued.     But  there  was  not  the  slightest  25 
dustiness;    nothing  less  pure  than  leaves,  and  ripe  pollen, 
and  flecks  of  withered  bracken  and  moss.     I  heard  trees 
falling  for  hours  at  the  rate  of  one  every  two  or  three  minutes: 
some  uprooted,  partly  on  account  of  the  loose,  water-soaked 
condition   of   the   ground;    others   broken   straight  across, 30 
where  some  weakness  caused  by  fire  had  determined  the 
spot.     The  gestures  of  the  various  trees  made  a  delightful 
study.     Young  Sugar  Pines,  light  and  feathery  as  squirrel- 
tails,  were  bowing  almost  to  the  ground;    while  the  grand 
old  patriarchs,  whose  massive  boles  had  been  tried'  in  a  35 
hundred  storms,  waved  solemnly  above  them,  their  long, 
arching  branches  streaming  fluently  on  the  gale,  and  every 


300  JOHN  MUIR 

needle  thrilling  and  ringing  and  shedding  off  keen  lances 
of  light  Hke  a  diamond.  The  Douglas  Spruces,  with  long 
sprays  drawn  out  in  level  tresses,  and  needles  massed  in  a 
gray,  shimmering  glow,  presented  a  most  striking  appearance 
5  as  they  stood  in  bold  reUef  along  the  hilltops.  The  madronos 
in  the  dells,  with  their  red  bark  and  large  glossy  leaves 
tilted  every  way,  reflected  the  sunshine  in  throbbing  spangles 
like  those  one  so  often  sees  on  the  rippled  surface  of  a  glacier 
lake.     But  the  Silver  Pines  were  now  the  most  impressively 

lo  beautiful  of  all.  Colossal  spires  two  hundred  feet  in  height 
waved  like  supple  golden-rods  chanting  and  bowing  low  as 
if  in  worship;  while  the  whole  mass  of  their  long,  tremulous 
foliage  was  kindled  into  one  continuous  blaze  of  white  sun- 
fire.     The  force  of  the  gale  was  such  that  the  most  stead- 

15  fast  monarch  of  them  all  rocked  down  to  its  roots,  with  a 
motion  plainly  perceptible  when  one  leaned  against  it. 
Nature  was  holding  high  festival,  and  every  fiber  of  the  most 
rigid  giants  thrilled  with  glad  excitement. 

I  drifted  on  through  the  midst  of  this  passionate  music 

20 and  motion,  across  many  a  glen,  from  ridge  to  ridge;  often 
halting  in  the  lee  of  a  rock  for  shelter,  or  to  gaze  and  Hsten. 
Even  when  the  grand  anthem  had  swelled  to  its  highest 
pitch,  I  could  distinctly  hear  the  varying  tones  of  individual 
trees — Spruce,   and   Fir,  and  Pine,  and   leafless   Oak — and 

25  even  the  infinitely  gentle  rustle  of  the  withered  grasses  at 
my  feet.  Each  was  expressing  itself  in  its  own  way — sing- 
ing its  own  song,  and  making  its  own  pecuHar  gestures — 
manifesting  a  richness  of  variety  to  be  found  in  no  other 
forest  I  have  yet  seen.     The  coniferous  woods  of  Canada 

30  and  the  Carolinas  and  Florida,  are  made  up  of  trees  that 
resemble  one  another  about  as  nearly  as  blades  of  grass, 
and  grow  close  together  in  much  the  same  way.  Coniferous 
trees,  in  general,  seldom  possess  individual  character,  such 
as  is  manifest  among  Oaks  and  Elms.       But  the  California 

35  forests  are  made  up  of  a  greater  number  of  distinct  species 
than  any  other  in  the  world.  And  in  them  we  find,  not 
only  a  marked  differentiation  into  special  groups,  but  also 


A  WIND-STOKM   IN  THE   FORESTS  301 

a  marked  individuality  in  almost  every  tree,  giving  rise 
to  storm  efTects  indescribably  glorious. 

Toward  midday,  after  a  long,  tingling  scramble  through 
copses  of  hazel  and  ceanothus,  I  gained  the  summit  of  the 
highest  ridge  in  the  neighborhood;  and  then  it  occurred  5 
to  me  that  it  would  be  a  fme  thing  to  climb  one  of  the  trees, 
to  obtain  a  wider  outlook  and  get  my  ear  close  to  the  ^olian 
music  of  its  topmost  needles.  But  under  the  circumstances 
the  choice  of  a  tree  was  a  serious  matter.  One  whose  instep 
was  not  very  strong  seemed  in  danger  of  being  blown  down,  10 
or  of  being  struck  by  others  in  case  they  should  fall;  another 
was  branchless  to  a  considerable  height  above  the  ground, 
and  at  the  same  time  too  large  to  be  grasped  with  arms  and 
legs  in  climbing;  while  others  were  not  favorably  situated 
for  clear  views.  After  cautiously  casting  about,  I  made  15 
choice  of  the  tallest  of  a  group  of  Douglas  Spruces  that 
were  growing  close  together  Hke  a  tuft  of  grass,  no  one  of 
which  seemed  hkely  to  fall  unless  all  the  rest  fell  with  it. 
Though  comj)aratively  young,  they  were  about  a  hundred 
feet  high,  and  their  lithe,  brushy  tops  were  rocking  and  20 
swirling  in  wild  ecstasy.  Being  accustomed  to  cHmb  trees 
in  making  botanical  studies,  I  experienced  no  difficulty  in 
reaching  the  toi)  of  this  one;  and  never  before  did  I  enjoy 
so  noble  an  exhileration  of  motion.  The  slender  tops  fairly 
flapped  and  swished  in  the  passionate  torrent,  bending  and  25 
swirUng  backward  and  forward,  round  and  round,  tracing 
indescribable  combinations  of  vertical  and  horizontal  curves, 
while  I  clung  with  muscles  firm-braced,  like  a  bobolink 
on  a  reed. 

In  its  widest  sweeps  my  tree-top  described  an  arc  of  from  30 
twenty  to  thirty  degrees;  but  I  felt  sure  of  its  elastic  temper, 
having  seen  others  of  the  same  sj)ecies  still  more  severely 
tried — bent  almost  to  the  ground  indeed,  in  heavy  snows — 
without  breaking  a  fiber.  I  was  therefore  safe,  and  free  to 
take  the  wind  into  my  pulses  and  enjoy  the  excited  forest  35 
from  my  superb  outlook.  The  view  from  here  must  be 
extremely  beautiful  in  any  weather.     Now  my  eye  roved 


302  JOHN  MUIR 

over  the  piny  hills  and  dales  as  over  fields  of  waving  grain, 
and  felt  the  light  running  in  ripples  and  broad  swelling 
undulations  across  the  valleys  from  ridge  to  ridge,  as  the 
shining  fohage  was  stirred  by  corresponding  waves  of  air. 
5  Oftentimes  these  waves  of  reflected  light  would  break  one 
another  in  regular  order,  they  would  seem  to  bend  forward 
in  concentric  curves,  and  disappear  on  some  hillside,  like  sea 
waves  on  a  shelving  shore.  The  quantity  of  light  reflected 
from  the  bent  needles  was  so  great  as  to  make  whole  groves 

lo  appear  as  if  covered  with  snow,  while  the  black  shadows 
beneath  the  trees  greatly  enhanced  the  effect  of  the  silvery 
splendor. 

Excepting  only  the  shadows,  there  was  nothing  somber  in 
all  this  wild  sea  of  pines.     On  the  contrary,  notwithstand- 

ising  this  was  the  winter  season,  the  colors  were  remarkably 
beautiful.  The  shafts  of  the  pine  and  libocedrus  were 
brown  and  purple,  and  most  of  the  foliage  was  well  tinged 
with  yellow;  the  laurel  groves,  with  the  pale  under  sides 
of  their  leaves  turned  upward,  made  masses  of  gray;    and 

20  then  there  was  many  a  dash  of  chocolate  color  from  clumps 
of  manzanita,  and  jet  of  vivid  crimson  from  the  bark  of  the 
madronos;  while  the  ground  on  the  hillsides,  appeariijg  here 
and  there  through  openings  between  the  groves,  displayed 
masses  of  pale  purple  and  brown. 

25  The  sounds  of  the  storm  corresponded  gloriously  with 
this  wild  exuberance  of  light  and  motion.  The  profound  bass 
of  the  naked  branches  and  boles  booming  like  waterfalls; 
the  quick,  tense  vibrations  of  the  pine-needles,  now  rising 
to  a  shrill,  whistling  hiss,  now  falling  to  a  silky  murmur; 

30  the  rusthng  of  laurel  groves  in  the  dells,  and  the  keen  metallic 
click  of  leaf  on  leaf — all  this  was  heard  in  easy  analysis  when 
the  attention  was  calmly  bent. 

The  varied  gestures  of  the  multitude  were  seen  to  find 
advantage,  so  that  one  could  recognize  the  different  species 

35  at  a  distance  of  several  miles  by  this  means  alone,  as  well 
as  by  their  forms  and  colors  and  the  way  they  reflected 
the  light.     All  seemed  strong  and  comfortable,  as  if  really 


A  WIND-STOKM   IN  THE   FORESTS  303 

enjoying  the  storm,  while  responding  to  its  most  enthu- 
siastic greetings.  We  hear  much  nowadays  concerning 
the  universal  struggle  for  existence,  but  no  struggle  in  the 
common  meaning  of  the  word  was  manifest  here;  no  recog- 
nition of  danger  by  any  tree;  no  deprecation:  but  rather  5 
an  invincible  gladness,  as  remote  from  exultation  as  from 
fear. 

I  kept  my  lofty  perch  for  hours,  frequently  closing  my 
eyes  to  enjoy  the  music  by  itself,  or  to  feast  quietly  on  the 
delicious  fragrance  that  was  streaming  past.  The  fra- 10 
grance  of  the  woods  was  less  marked  than  that  produced 
during  warm  rain,  when  so  many  balsamic  buds  and  leaves 
are  steeped  like  tea;  but  from  the  chafing  of  resiny  branches 
against  each  other,  and  the  incessant  attrition  of  myriads 
of  needles,  the  gale  was  spiced  to  a  very  tonic  degree.  And  15 
besides  the  fragrance  from  these  local  sources,  there  were 
traces  of  scents  brought  from  afar.  For  this  wind  came 
first  from  the  sea,  rubbing  against  its  fresh,  briny  waves, 
then  distilled  through  the  redwoods,  threading  rich  ferny 
gulches,  and  spreading  itself  in  broad  undulating  currents  20 
over  many  a  flower-enameled  ridge  of  the  coast  mountains, 
then  across  the  golden  plains,  up  the  purple  foot-hills,  and 
into  these  piny  woods  with  the  varied  incense  gathered 
by  the  way. 

Winds   are   advertisements   of   all   they   touch,   however  25 
much  or  little  we  may  be  able  to  read  them;    telling  their 
wanderings   even   by   their  scents   alone.     Mariners  detect 
the   flowery   perfume   of   land-winds   far   at   sea,   and   sea- 
winds  carry  the  fragrance  of  dulce  and  tangle  far  inland, 
where  it  is  quickly  recognized,   though  mingled  with  the  30 
scents  of  a   thousand   land-flowers.     As  an  illustration   of 
this,  I  may  tell  here  that  1  breathed  sea-air  on  the  Firth  of 
Forth,  in  Scotland,  while  a  boy;    then  was  taken  to  Wis- 
consin,  where   I   remained   nineteen   years;    then,   witjiout 
in  all  this  time  ha\ing  breathed  one  breath  of  the  sea,  1 35 
walked  quietly,  alone,  from  the  middle  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  to  the  Gulf  of  INIexico,  on  a  botanical  excursion; 


304  JOHN  MUIR 

and  while  in  Florida,  far  from  the  coast,  my  attention  wholly 
bent  on  the  splendid  tropical  vegetation  about  me,  I  sud- 
denly recognized  a  sea-breeze,  as  it  came  sifting  through 
the  palmettos  and  blooming  vine-tangles,  which  at  once 
S  awakened  and  set  free  a  thousand  dormant  associations, 
and  made  me  a  boy  again  in  Scotland,  as  if  all  the  inter- 
vening years  had  been  annihilated. 

Most  people  like  to  look  at  mountain  rivers,  and  bear 
them  in  mind;    but  few  care  to  look  at  the  winds,  though 

lofar  more  beautiful  and  sublime,  and  though  they  become 
at  times  about  as  visible  as  flowing  water.  When  the  north 
winds  in  winter  are  making  upward  sweeps  over  the  curving 
summits  of  the  High  Sierra,  the  fact  is  sometimes  published 
with    flying    snow-banners    a    mile    long.     Those    portions 

IS  of  the  winds  thus  embodied  can  scarce  be  wholly  invisible, 
even  to  the  darkest  imagination.  And  when  we  look  around 
over  an  agitated  forest,  we  may  see  something  of  the  wind 
that  stirs  it,  by  its  effects  upon  the  trees.  Yonder  it  de- 
scends in  a  rush  of  water-like  ripples,  and  sweeps  over  the 

20  bending  pines  from  hill  to  hill.  Nearer,  we  see  detached 
plumes  and  leaves,  now  speeding  by  on  level  currents,  now 
whirling  in  eddies,  or  escaping  over  the  edges  of-^he  whirls, 
soaring  aloft  on  grand,  upswelling  domes  of  air,  or  tossing 
on    fiame-likc    crests.     Smooth,    deep    currents,    cascades, 

25  falls,  and  swirling  eddies,  sing  around  every  tree  and  leaf, 
and  over  all  the  ^'aried  topography  of  the  region  with  tell- 
ing changes  of  form,  like  mountain  rivers  conforming  to 
the  features  of  their  channels. 

After   tracing   the   Sierra   streams   from    their   fountains 

30  to  the  plains,  marking  where  they  bloom  white  in  falls, 
glide  in  crystal  plumes,  surge  gray  and  foam-filled  in 
bowlder-choked  gorges,  and  slip  through  the  woods  in  long, 
tranquil  reaches — after  thus  learning  their  language  and 
forms  in  detail,  we  may  at  length  hear  them  chanting  all 

35  together  in  one  grand  anthem,  and  comprehend  them  all 
in  clear  inner  vision,  covering  the  range  like  lace.  But 
even  this  spectacle  is  far  less  subUme  and  not  a  whit  more 


A  WIND-STORM  IN  THE   FORESTS  305 

substantial  than  what  we  may  behold  of  these  storm-streams 
of  air  in  the  mountain  woods. 

We  all  travel  the  Milky  Way  together,  trees  and  men; 
but  it  never  occurred  to  me  until  this  storm  day,  while 
swinging  in  the  wind,  that  trees  are  travelers,  in  the  ordinary  5 
sense.  They  make  many  journeys;  not  extensive  ones, 
it  is  true;  but  our  own  little  journeys,  away  and  back 
again,  are  only  little  more  than  tree-wavings — many  of  them 
not  so  much. 

When  the  storm  began  to  abate,  I  dismounted  and  saun-  lo 
tered  down  through  the  calming  woods.  The  storm-tonts 
died  away,  and  turning  toward  the  east,  I  beheld  the  count- 
less hosts  of  the  forests  hushed  and  tranquil,  towering 
above  one  another  on  the  slopes  of  the  hills  like  a  devout 
audience.  The  setting  sun  filled  them  with  amber  light,  is 
and  seemed  to  say,  while  they  listened,  "  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you." 

As  I  gazed  on  the  impressive  scene,  all  the  so-called  ruin 
of  the  storm  was  forgotten;  and  never  before  did  these 
noble  woods  appear  so  fresh,  so  joyous,  so  immortal,  20 


WALDEN  POND  i 

Henry  David  Tiioreau 

Occasionally,  after  my  hoeing  was  done  for  the  day, 
I  joined  some  impatient  companion  who  had  been  fishing 
on  the  pond  since  morning,  as  silent  and  motionless  as  a 
duck  or  a  floating  leaf,  and,  after  practising  various  kinds 

5  of  philosophy,  had  concluded  commonly,  by  the  time  I 
arrived,  that  he  belonged  to  the  ancient  sect  of  Coenobites. 
There  was  one  older  man,  an  excellent  fisher  and  skilled  in 
all  kinds  of  woodcraft,  who  was  pleased  to  look  upon  my 
house  as  a  building  erected  for  the  convenience  of  fishermen; 

loand  I  was  equally  pleased  when  he  sat  in  my  doorway  to 
arrange  his  lines.  Once  in  a  while  we  sat  together  on  the 
pond,  he  at  one  end  of  the  boat,  and  I  at  the  other;  but  not 
many  words  passed  between  us,  for  he  had  grown  deaf  in 
his  later  years,  but  he  occasionally  hummed  a  psalm,  which 

15  harmonized  well  enough  with  my  philosophy.  Our  inter- 
course was  thus  altogether  one  of  unbroken  harmony,  far 
more  pleasing  to  remember  than  if  it  had  been  carried  on  by 
speech.  When,  as  was  commonly  the  case,  I  had  none  to 
commune  with,  I  used  to  raise  the  echoes  by  striking  with 

20a  paddle  on  the  side  of  my  boat,  filing  the  surrounding 
woods  with  circling  and  dilating  sound,  stirring  them  up 
as  the  keeper  of  a  menagerie  his  wild  beasts,  until  I  elicited 
a  growl  from  every  wooded  vale  and  hillside. 

In  warm  evenings  I  frequently  sat  in  the  boat  playing 

25  the  flute,  and  saw  the  perch,  which  I  seemed  to  have  charmed, 
hovering  around  me,  and  the  moon  travelling  over  the  ribbed 
bottom,  which  was  strewed  with  the  wrecks  of  the  forest. 

'  From  Chapter  IX  of  "  Walden,"  1854. 

306 


WALDEN  POND  307 

Formerly  I  had  come  to  this  pond  adventurously,  from 
time  to  time,  in  dark  summer  nights,  with  a  companion, 
and  making  a  fire  close  to  the  water's  edge,  which  we 
thought  attracted  the  fishes,  we  caught  pouts  with  a  bunch 
of  worms  strung  on  a  thread;  and  when  we  had  done,  far  s 
in  the  night,  threw  the  burning  brands  high  into  the  air 
like  sky-rockets,  which,  coming  down  into  the  pond,  were 
quenched  with  a  loud  hissing,  and  we  were  suddenly  groping 
in  total  darkness.  Through  this,  whistling  a  tune,  we  took 
our  way  to  the  haunts  of  men  again.  But  now  I  had  made  lo 
my  home  by  the  shore. 

Sometimes,  after  staying  in  a  village  parlor  till  the 
family  had  all  retired,  I  have  returned  to  the  woods,  and, 
partly  with  a  view  to  the  next  day's  dinner,  spent  the  hours 
of  midnight  fishing  from  a  boat  by  moonlight,  serenaded  15 
by  owls  and  foxes,  and  hearing,  from  time  to  time,  the 
creaking  note  of  some  unknown  bird  close  at  hand.  These 
experiences  were  very  memorable  and  valuable  to  me, — 
anchored  in  forty  feet  of  water,  and  twenty  or  thirty  rods 
from  the  shore,  surrounded  sometimes  by  thousands  of  20 
small  perch  and  shiners,  dimpling  the  surface  with  their 
tails  in  the  moonlight,  and  communicating  by  a  long  flaxen 
line  with  mysterious  nocturnal  fishes  which  had  their  dwell- 
ing forty  feet  below,  or  sometimes  dragging  sixty  feet  of 
line  about  the  pond  as  I  drifted  in  the  gentle  night  breeze,  25 
now  and  then  feeling  a  slight  vibration  along  it,  indicative 
of  some  life  prowling  about  its  extremity,  of  dull  uncertain 
blundering  purpose  there,  and  slow  to  make  up  its  mind. 
At  length  you  slowly  raise,  pulling  hand  over  hand,  some 
horned  pout  squeaking  and  squirming  to  the  upper  air.  It  30 
was  very  queer,  especially  in  dark  nights,  when  your  thoughts 
had  wandered  to  vast  and  cosmogonal  themes  in  other 
spheres,  to  feel  this  faint  jerk,  which  came  to  interrupt 
your  dreams  and  link  you  to  Nature  again.  It  seemed 
as  if  I  might  next  cast  my  line  upward  into  the  air,  as  well  35 
as  downward  into  this  element  which  was  scarcely  more 
dense.     Thus  I  caught  two  fishes  as  it  were  with  one  hook. 


308  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

The  scenery  of  Walden  is  on  a  humble  scale,  and,  though 
very  beautiful,  does  not  approach  to  grandeur,  nor  can  it 
much  concern  one  who  has  not  long  frequented  it,  or  lived 
by  its  shore;  yet  this  pond  is  so  remarkable  for  its  depth 
5  and  purity  as  to  merit  a  particular  description.  It  is  a 
clear  and  deep  green  well,  half  a  mile  long  and  a  mile  and 
three  quarters  in  circumference,  and  contains  about  sixty- 
one  and  a  half  acres;  a  perennial  spring  in  the  midst  of  pine 
and  oak  woods,  without  any  visible  inlet  or  outlet  except 

loby  the  clouds  and  evaporation.  The  surrounding  hills  rise 
abruptly  from  the  water  to  the  height  of  forty  to  eighty  feet, 
though  on  the  southeast  and  east  they  attain  to  about  one 
hundred  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  respectively,  within  a 
quarter  and  a  third  of  a  mile.     They  are  exclusively  wood- 

15  land.  All  our  Concord  waters  have  two  colors  at  least,  one 
when  viewed  at  a  distance,  and  another,  more  proper,  close 
at  hand.  The  first  depends  more  on  the  light,  and  follows 
the  sky.  In  clear  weather,  in  summer,  they  appear  blue 
at  a  little  distance,  especially  if  agitated,  and  at  a  great 

20  distance  all  appear  ahke.  In  stormy  weather  they  are 
sometimes  of  a  dark  slate  color.  The  seiv  however,  is  said 
to  be  blue  one  day  and  green  another  without  any  percep- 
tible change  in  the  atmosphere.  I  have  seen  our  river, 
when,  the  landscape  being  covered  with  snow,  both  water 

25  and  ice  were  almost  as  green  as  grass.  Some  consider 
blue  "  to  be  the  color  of  pure  water,  whether  liquid  or  solid." 
But  looking  directly  down  into  our  waters  from  a  boat, 
they  are  seen  to  be  of  very  different  colors.  Walden  is  blue 
at  one  time  and  green  at  another,  even  from  the  same  point 

30  of  view.  Lying  between  the  earth  and  the  heavens,  it  par- 
takes of  the  color  of  both.  Viewed  from  a  hilltop  it  reflects 
the  color  of  the  sky,  but  near  at  hand  it  is  of  a  yellowish 
tint  next  the  shore  where  you  can  see  the  sand,  then  a  light 
green,  which  gradually  deepens  to  a  uniform  dark  green 

35  in  the  body  of  the  pond.  In  some  lights,  viewed  even  from 
a  hilltop,  it  is  of  a  vivid  green  next  the  shore.  Some  have 
referred  this  to  the  reflection  of  the  verdure;  but  it  is  equally 


WALDEN  POND  309 

green  there  against  the  railroad  sand-bank,  and  in  the  spring, 
before  the  leaves  are  expanded,  and  it  may  be  simply  the 
result  of  the  prevailing  blue  mixed  with  the  yellow  of  the 
sand.  Such  is  the  color  of  its  iris.  This  is  that  portion, 
also,  where  in  the  spring,  the  ice  being  warmed  by  the  heat  5 
of  the  sun  reflected  from  the  bottom,  and  also  transmitted 
through  the  earth,  melts  first  and  forms  a  narrow  canal 
about  the  still  frozen  middle.  Like  the  rest  of  our  waters, 
when  much  agitated,  in  clear  weather,  so  that  the  surface 
of  the  waves  may  reflect  the  sky  at  the  right  angle,  or  because  lo 
there  is  more  light  mixed  with  it,  it  appears  at  a  little  dis- 
tance of  a  darker  blue  than  the  sky  itself;  and  at  such 
a  time,  being  on  its  surface,  and  looking  with  divided  vision, 
so  as  to  see  the  reflection,  I  have  discerned  a  matchless 
and  indescribable  light  blue,  such  as  watered  or  changeable  15 
silks  and  sword  blades  suggest,  more  cerulean  than  the  sky 
itself,  alternating  with  the  original  dark  green  on  the  opposite 
sides  of  the  waves,  which  last  appeared  but  muddy  in  com- 
parison. It  is  a  vitreous  greenish  blue,  as  I  remember  it, 
like  those  patches  of  the  winter  sky  seen  through  cloud  20 
vistas  in  the  west  before  sundown.  Yet  a  single  glass  of 
its  water  held  up  to  the  light  is  as  colorless  as  an  equal 
quantity  of  air.  It  is  well-known  that  a  large  plate  of  glass 
will  have  a  green  tint,  owing,  as  the  makers  say,  to  its 
"  body,"  but  a  small  piece  of  the  same  will  be  colorless.  25 
How  large  a  body  of  Walden  water  would  be  required  to 
reflect  a  green  tint  I  have  never  proved.  The  water  of 
our  river  is  black  or  a  very  dark  brown  to  one  looking 
directly  down  on  it,  and  like  that  of  most  ponds,  imparts 
to  the  body  of  one  bathing  in  it  a  yellowish  tinge;  but 30 
this  water  is  of  such  crystalline  purity  that  the  body  of 
the  bather  appears  of  an  alabaster  whiteness,  still  more 
unnatural,  which,  as  the  limbs  are  magnified  and  dis- 
torted withal,  produces  a  monstrous  effect,  making  fit 
studies  for  a  Michael  Angelo.  35 

The  water  is  so  transparent  that  the  bottom  can  easily 
be  discerned   at   the  depth   of  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet. 


310  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

Paddling  over  it,  you  may  see  many  feet  beneath  the 
surface  the  schools  of  perch  and  shiners,  perhaps  only 
an  inch  long,  yet  the  former  easily  distinguished  Sy  their 
transverse  bars,  and  you  think  that  they  must  be  ascetic 
5  fish  that  find  a  subsistence  there.  Once,  in  the  winter, 
many  years  ago,  when  I  had  been  cutting  holes  through 
the  ice  in  order  to  catch  pickerel,  as  I  stepped  ashore  I  tossed 
my  axe  back  on  to  the  ice,  but,  as  if  some  evil  genius  had 
directed  it,  it  slid  four  or  five  rods  directly  into  one  of  the 

lo  holes,  where  the  water  was  twenty-five  feet  deep.  Out  of 
curiosity,  I  lay  down  on  the  ice  and  looked  through  the 
hole,  until  I  saw  the  axe  a  little  on  one  side,  standing  on  its 
head,  with  its  helve  erect  and  gently  swaying  to  and  fro 
with  the  pulse  of  the  pond;   and  there  it  might  have  stood 

15  erect  and  swaying  till  in  the  course  of  time  the  handle 
rotted  off,  if  I  had  not  disturbed  it.  Making  another  hole 
directly  over  it  with  an  ice  chisel  which  I  had,  and  cutting 
down  the  longest  birch  which  I  could  find  in  the  neighbor- 
hood with  my  knife,  I  made  a  slip-noose,  which  I  attached 

20  to  its  end,  and,  letting  it  down  carefully,  passed  it  over  the 
knob  of  the  handle,  and  drew  it  by  a  ling  along  the  birch, 
and  so  pulled  the  axe  out  again. 

The  shore  is  composed  of  a  belt  of  smooth  rounded  white 
stones  like  paving  stones,  excepting  one  or  two  short  sand 

25  beaches,  and  is  so  steep  that  in  many  places  a  single  leap 
will  carry  you  into  water  over  your  head;  and  were  it  not 
for  its  remarkable  transparency,  that  would  be  the  last 
to  be  seen  of  its  bottom  till  it  rose  on  the  opposite  side. 
Some  think  it  is  bottomless.     It  is  nowhere  muddy,  and  a 

30  casual  observer  would  say  that  there  were  no  weeds  at  all 
in  it;  and  of  noticeable  plants,  except  in  the  little  meadows 
recently  overflowed,  which  do  not  properly  belong  to  it,  a 
closer  scrutiny  does  not  detect  a  flag  nor  a  bulrush,  nor  even 
a  lily,  yellow  or  white,  but  only  a  few  small  heart-leaves  and 

35  potamogetons,  and  perhaps  a  water-target  or  two;  all 
which  however  a  bather  might  not  perceive;  and  these  plants 
are  clean  and  bright  like  the  element  they  grow  in.     The 


WALDEN   POND  311 

stones  extend  a  rod  or  two  into  the  water,  and  then  the 
bottom  is  pure  sand,  except  in  the  deepest  parts,  where 
there  is  usually  a  little  sediment,  probably  from  the  decay 
of  the  leaves,  which  have  been  wafted  on  to  it  so  many 
successive  falls,  and  a  bright  green  weed  is  brought  up  on  5 
anchors  even  in  midwinter. 

We  have  one  other  pond  just  like  this.  White  Pond  in 
Nine  Acre  Corner,  about  two  and  a  half  miles  westerly; 
but,  though  I  am  acquainted  with  most  of  the  ponds  within 
a  dozen  miles  of  this  center,  I  do  not  know  a  third  of  this  10 
pure  and  well-like  character.  Successive  nations  perchance 
have  drunk  at,  admired,  and  fathomed  it,  and  passed  away, 
and  still  its  water  is  green  and  pellucid  as  ever.  Not  an 
intermitting  spring!  Perhaps  on  that  spring  morning  when 
Adam  and  Eve  were  driven  out  of  Eden,  Walden  Pond  was  15 
already  in  existence,  and  even  then  breaking  up  in  a  gentle 
spring  rain  accompanied  with  mist  and  a  southerly  wind, 
and  covered  with  myriads  of  ducks  and  geese,  which  had 
not  heard  of  the  fall,  when  still  such  pure  lakes  sufficed  them. 
Even  then  it  had  commenced  to  rise  and  fall,  and  had  20 
clarified  its  waters  and  colored  them  of  the  hue  they  now 
wear,  and  obtained  a  patent  of  heaven  to  be  the  only 
Walden  Pond  in  the  world  and  distiller  of  celestial  dews. 
Who  knows  in  how  may  unremembered  nations'  literatures 
this  has  been  the  Castalian  Fountain?  ^  or  what  nymphs  25 
presided  over  it  in  the  Golden  Age?  It  is  a  gem  of  the  first 
water  which  Concord  wears  in  her  coronet. 

Yet  perchance  the  first  who  came  to  this  well  have  left 
some  trace  of  their  footsteps.  I  have  been  surprised  to 
detect  encircling  the  pond,  even  where  a  thickwood  has  30 
just  been  cut  down  on  the  shore,  a  narrow  shelf-like  path  in 
the  steep  hillside,  alternately  rising  and  falling,  approach- 
ing and  receding  from  the  water's  edge,  as  old  probably  as 
the  race  of  man  here,  worn  by  the  feet  of  aboriginal  hurtters, 
and  still  from  time  to  time  unwittingly   trodden  by  the  35 

'  The  Castalian  Fountain  on  iMount  Parnassus  was  sacred  to  Apollo 
and  the  Muses. 


312  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

present  occupants  of  the  land.  This  is  particularly  distinct 
to  one  standing  on  the  middle  of  the  pond  in  winter,  just 
after  a  light  snow  has  fallen,  appearing  as  a  clear  undulating 
white  line,  unobscured  by  weeds  and  twigs,  and  very  obvious 
5  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off  in  many  places  where  in  summer  it  is 
hardly  distinguishable  close  at  hand.  The  snow  reprints 
it,  as  it  were,  in  clear  white  type  alto-relievo.  The  orna- 
mented grounds  of  villas  which  will  one  day  be  built  here 
may  still  preserve  some  trace  of  this. 

lo  The  pond  rises  and  falls,  but  whether  regularly  or  not, 
and  within  what  period,  nobody  knows,  though,  as  usual, 
many  pretend  to  know.  It  is  commonly  higher  in  the 
winter  and  lower  in  the  summer,  though  not  corresponding 
to  the  general  wet  and  dryness.     I  can  remember  when 

15  it  was  a  foot  or  two  lower,  and  also  when  it  was  at  least 
five  feet  higher,  than  when  I  lived  by  it.  There  is  a  narrow 
sand-bar  running  into  it,  very  deep  water  on  one  side,  on 
which  I  helped  boil  a  kettle  of  chowder,  some  six  rods  from 
the  main  shore,  about  the  year  1824,  which  it  has  not  been 

23 possible  to  do  for  twenty-five  years;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
my  friends  used  to  listen  with  incredulity '«\'hen  I  told  them 
that  a  few  years  later  I  was  accustomed  to  fish  from  a  boat 
in  a  secluded  cove  in  the  woods,  fifteen  rods  from  the  only 
shore  they  knew,  which  place  was  long  since  converted  into  a 

25  meadow.  But  the  pond  has  risen  steadily  for  two  years, 
and  now,  in  the  summer  of  '52,  is  just  five  feet  higher  than 
when  I  lived  there,  or  as  high  as  it  was  thirty  years  ago,  and 
fishing  goes  on  again  in  the  meadow.  This  makes  a  dif- 
ference of  level,  at  the  outside,  of  six  or  seven  feet;   and  yet 

30  the  water  shed  by  the  surrounding  hills  is  insignificant  in 
amount,  and  this  overflow  must  be  referred  to  causes  which 
affect  the  deep  springs.  This  same  summer  the  pond  has 
begun  to  fall  again.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  fluctuation, 
whether  periodical  or  not,  appears  thus  to  require  many 

35  years  for  its  accomplishment.  I  have  observed  one  rise 
and  a  part  of  two  falls,  and  I  expect  that  a  dozen  or  fifteen 
years  hence  the  water  will  again  be  as  low  as  I  have  ever 


WALDEN  POND  313 

known  it.  Flint's  Pond,  a  mile  eastward,  allowing  for  the 
disturbance  occasioned  by  its  inlets  and  outlets,  and  the 
smaller  intermediate  ponds  also,  sympathize  with  Walden, 
and  recently  attained  their  greatest  height  at  the  same  time 
with  the  latter.  The  same  is  true,  as  far  as  my  observation  5 
goes,  of  White  Pond. 

This  rise  and  fall  of  Walden  at  long  intervals  serves  this 
use  at  least:  the  water  standing  at  this  great  height  for  a 
year  or  more,  though  it  makes  it  difficult  to  walk  round  it, 
kills  the  shrubs  and  trees  which  have  sprung  up  about  its  10 
edge  since  the  last  rise,  pitch-pines,  birches,  alders,  aspens, 
and  others,  and,  faUing  again,  leaves  an  unobstructed 
shore;  for,  unlike  many  ponds,  and  all  waters  which  are 
subject  to  a  daily  tide,  its  shore  is  cleanest  when  the  water 
is  lowest.  On  the  side  of  the  pond  next  my  house,  a  row  15 
of  pitch-pines  fifteen  feet  high  has  been  killed  and  tipi)ed 
over  as  if  by  a  lever,  and  thus  a  stop  put  to  their  encroach- 
ments; and  their  size  indicates  how  many  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  last  rise  to  this  height.  By  this  fluctua- 
tion the  pond  asserts  its  title  to  a  shore,  and  thus  the  shore  20 
is  shorn,  and  the  trees  cannot  hold  it  by  right  of  possession. 
These  are  the  hps  of  the  lake  on  which  no  beaid  grows.  It 
licks  its  chaps  from  time  to  time.  When  the  water  is  at 
its  height,  the  alders,  willows,  and  maples  send  forth  a  mass 
of  fibrous  red  roots  several  feet  long  from  all  sides  of  their  25 
stems  in  the  water,  and  to  the  height  of  three  or  four  feet 
from  the  ground,  in  the  effort  to  maintain  themselves; 
and  I  have  known  the  high  blueberry  bushes  about  the 
shore,  which  commonly  produce  no  fruit,  bear  an  abundant 
crop  under  these  circumstances.  30 

Some  have  been  puzzled  to  tell  how  the  shore  became  so 
regularly  paved.  My  townsmen  have  all  heard  the  tradi- 
tion— the  oldest  people  tell  me  that  they  heard  it  in  their 
youth — that  anciently  the  Indians  were  holding  a  pow- 
wow upon  a  hill  here,  which  rose  as  high  into  the  heavens  35 
as  the  pond  now  sinks  deep  into  the  earth,  and  they  used 
much  profanity,  as  the  story  goes,  though  this  vice  is  one 


314  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

of  which  the  Indians  were  never  guilty,  and  while  they  were 
thus  engaged  the  hill  shook  and  suddenly  sank,  and  only 
one  old  squaw,  named  Walden,  escaped,  and  from  her  the 
pond  was  named.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  when  the 
5  hill  shook,  these  stones  rolled  down  its  side  and  became  the 
present  shore.  It  is  very  certain,  at  any  rate,  that  once 
there  was  no  pond  here,  and  now  there  is  one;  and  this 
Indian  fable  does  not  in  any  respect  conflict  with  the  account 
of  that  ancient  settler  whom  I  have  mentioned,  who  remem- 

lobers  so  well  when  he  first  came  here  with  his  divining-rod, 
saw  a  thin  vapor  rising  from  the  sward,  and  the  hazel 
pointed '  steadily  downward,  and  he  concluded  to  dig  a 
well  here.  As  for  the  stones,  many  still  think  that  they 
are  hardly  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  action  of  the  waves 

15  on  these  hills;  but  I  observe  that  the  surrounding  hills  are 
remarkably  full  of  the  same  kind  of  stones,  so  that  they 
have  been  obliged  to  pile  them  up  in  walls  on  both  sides  of 
the  railroad  cut  nearest  the  pond;  and,  moreover,  there  are 
most  stones  where  the  shore  is  most  abrupt;   so  that,  unfor- 

2otunately,  it  is  no  longer  a  mystery  to  me.  I  detect  the 
paver.  If  the  name  was  not  derived  frbm  that  of  some 
EngHsh  locality — Saffron  Walden,  for  instance — one  might 
suppose  that  is  was  called,  originally,  Walled-in  Pond. 

The  pond  was  my  well  ready  dug.     For  four  months  in 

25  the  year  its  water  is  as  cold  as  it  is  pure  at  all  times;  and  I 
think  that  it  is  then  as  good  as  any,  if  not  the  best,  in  the 
town.  In  the  winter,  all  water  which  is  exposed  to  the  air 
is  colder  than  springs  and  wells  which  are  protected  from 
it.     The  temperature  of  the  pond  water  which  had  stood 

30  in  the  room  where  I  sat  from  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
till  noon  the  next  day,  the  sixth  of  March,  1846,  the  ther- 
mometer having  been  up  to  65°  or  70°  some  of  the  time, 
owing  partly  to  the  sun  on  the  roof,  was  42°,  or  one  degree 
colder  than  the  water  of  one  of  the  coldest  wells  in  the 

35  village  just  drawn.  The  temperature  of  the  Boiling  Spring 
the  same  day  was  45°,  or  the  warmest  of  any  water  tried, 
though  it  is  the  coldest  that  I  know  of  in  summer,  when, 


WALDEN  POND  315 

besides,  shallow  and  stagnant  surface  water  is  not  mingled 
with  it.  Moreover,  in  summer,  Walden  never  becomes  so 
warm  as  most  water  which  is  exposed  to  the  sun,  on  account 
of  its  depth.  In  the  warmest  weather  I  usually  placed  a 
pailful  in  my  cellar,  where  it  became  cool  in  the  night,  5 
and  remained  so  during  the  day;  though  I  also  resorted 
to  a  spring  in  the  neighborhood.  It  was  as  good  when  a 
a  week  old  as  the  day  it  was  dipped,  and  had  no  taste  of 
the  pump.  Whoever  camps  for  a  week  in  summer  by  the 
shore  of  a  pond,  needs  only  bury  a  pail  of  water  a  few  feet  lo 
deep  in  the  shade  of  his  camp  to  be  independent  of  the 
luxury  of  ice. 

There  have  been  caught  in  Walden,  pickerel,  one  weigh- 
ing seven  pounds,  to  say  nothing  of  another  which  carried 
ofif  a  reel  with  great  velocity,  which  the  fisherman  safely  is 
set  down  at  eight  pounds  because  he  did  not  see  him,  perch 
and  pouts,  some  of  each  weighing  over  two  pounds,  shiners, 
chivins  or  roach  {Leucisus  pulchellus) ,  a  very  few  breams, 
and  a  couple    of  eels,   one   weighing  four  pounds — I   am 
thus  particular  because  the  weight  of  a  fish  is  commonly  20 
its  only  title  to  fame,  and  these  are  the  only  eels  I  have 
heard  of  here;  also,  I  have  a  faint  recollection   of  a  little 
fish  some  five  inches  long,  with  silvery  sides  and  a  greenish 
back,  somewhat  dace-Hke  in  its  character,  which  I  mention 
here  chiefly  to  link  my  facts  to  fable.     Nevertheless,  this  25 
pond  is  not  very  fertile  in  fish.     Its  pickerel,  though  not 
abundant,   are  its   chief  boast.     I   have   seen  at  one  time 
lying  on  the  ice  pickerel  of  at  least  three  different  kinds: 
a  long  and  shallow  one,  steel-colored,  most  like  those  caught 
in  the  river;   a  bright  golden  kind,  with  greenish  reflections 30 
and  remarkably  deep,  which  is  the  most  common  here;   and 
another,  golden-colored,  and  shaped  like  the  last,  but  pep- 
pered on  the  sides  with  small  dark  brown  or  black  spots, 
intermixed  with  a  few  faint  blood-red  ones  very  mucK  like 
a  trout.     The  specific  name  rcliciilatns  ^   would  not  apply  35 
to  this;    it  should  be  guttatus-  rather.     These  are  all  very 
^  With  net-like  markings.  '  Speckled. 


316  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

firm  fish,  and  weigh  more  than  their  size  promises.  The 
shiners,  pouts,  and  perch,  also,  and  indeed  all  the  fishes 
which  inhabit  this  pond,  are  much  cleaner,  handsomer,  and 
firmer  fleshed  than  those  in  the  river  and  most  other  ponds, 

5  as  the  water  is  purer,  and  they  can  easily  be  distinguished 
from  them.  Probably  many  ichthyologists  would  make 
new  varieties  of  some  of  them.  There  are  also  a  clean  race 
of  frogs  and  tortoises,  and  a  few  mussels  in  it;  muskrats 
and  minks  leave  their  traces  about  it,  and  occasionally  a 

lotravelKng  mud-turtle  visits  it.  Sometimes,  when  I  pushed 
off  my  boat  in  the  morning,  I  disturbed  a  great  mud-turtle 
which  had  secreted  himself  under  the  boat  in  the  night. 
Ducks  and  geese  frequent  it  in  the  spring  and  fall,  the  white- 
bellied  swallows   {Hiriindo  bicolor)   skim  over  it,   and  the 

ispeetweets  {Totanus  maculariiis)  "  teter  "  along  its  stony 
shores  all  summer.  I  have  sometimes  disturbed  a  fishhawk 
sitting  on  a  white-pine  over  the  water;  but  I  doubt  if  it 
is  ever  profaned  by  the  wing  of  a  gull,  like  Fair-Haven.  At 
most,  it  tolerates  one  annual  loon.     These  are  all  the  animals 

20  of  consequence  which  frequent  it  now. 

You  may  see  from  a  boat,  in  calm  weather,  near  the 
sandy  eastern  shore,  where  the  water  is  eight  or  ten  feet 
deep,  and  also  in  some  other  parts  of  the  pond,  some  cir- 
cular heaps  half  a  dozen  feet  in  diameter  by  a  foot  in  height, 

25  consisting  of  small  stones  less  than  a  hen's  egg  in  size,  where 
all  around  is  bare  sand.  At  first  you  wonder  if  the  Indians 
could  have  formed  them  on  the  ice  for  any  purpose,  and  so, 
when  the  ice  melted,  they  sank  to  the  bottom;  but  they  are 
too  regular  and  some  of  them  plainly  too  fresh  for  that. 

30 They  are  similar  to  those  found  in  rivers;  but  as  there  are 
no  suckers  or  lampreys  here,  I  know  not  by  what  fish  they 
could  be  made.  Perhaps  they  are  the  nests  of  the  chivin. 
These  lend  a  pleasing  mystery  to  the  bottom. 

The  shore  is  irregular  enough  not  to  be  monotonous.     I 

35  have  in  my  mind's  eye  the  western  indented  with  deep 
bays,  the  bolder  northern,  and  the  beautifully  scalloped 
southern  shore,  where  successive  capes  overlap  each  other 


WALDEN  POND  317 

and  suggest  unexplored  coves  between.  The  forest  has 
never  so  good  a  setting,  nor  is  so  distinctly  beautiful,  as 
when  seen  from  the  middle  of  a  small  lake  amid  hills  which 
rise  from  the  water's  edge;  for  the  water  in  which  it  is 
reflected  not  only  makes  the  best  foreground  in  such  a  case,  5 
but,  with  its  winding  shore,  the  most  natural  and  agreeable 
boundary  to  it.  There  is  no  rawness  nor  imperfection  in 
its  edge  there,  as  where  the  axe  has  cleared  a  part,  or  a 
cultivated  field  abuts  on  it.  The  trees  have  ample  room  to 
expand  on  the  water  side,  and  each  sends  forth  its  most  lo 
vigorous  branch  in  that  direction.  There  Nature  has 
woven  a  natural  selvage,  and  the  eye  rises  by  just  grada- 
tions from  the  low  shrubs  of  the  shore  to  the  highest  trees. 
There  are  few  traces  of  man's  hand  to  be  seen.  The  water 
laves  the  shore  as  it  did  a  thousand  years  ago.  15 

A  lake  is  the  landscape's  most  beautiful  and  expressive 
feature.  It  is  earth's  eye;  looking  into  which  the  beholder 
measures  the  depth  of  his  own  nature.  The  fluviatile 
trees  next  the  shore  are  the  slender  eyelashes  which  fringe 
it,  and  the  wooded  hills  and  chfTs  around  are  its  overhang-  20 
ing  brows. 

Standing  on  the  smooth  sandy  beach  at  the  east  end  of 
the  pond,  in  a  calm  September  afternoon,  when  a  slight 
haze  makes  the  opposite  shore  line  indistinct,  I  have  seen 
whence  came  the  expression,  "the  glassy  surface  of  a  25 
lake."  When  you  invert  your  head,  it  looks  like  a  thread 
of  finest  gossamer  stretched  across  the  valley,  and  gleam- 
ing against  the  distant  pine  woods,  separating  one  stratum 
of  the  atmosphere  from  another.  You  would  think  that 
you  could  walk  dry  under  it  to  the  opposite  hills,  and  that  30 
the  swallows  which  skim  over  might  perch  on  it.  Indeed, 
they  sometimes  dive  below  the  line,  as  it  were  by  mistake, 
and  are  undeceived.  As  you  look  over  the  pond  westward 
you  are  obliged  to  employ  both  your  hands  to  defend  Vour 
eyes  against  the  reflected  as  well  as  the  true  sun,  for  they  35 
are  equallv  bright;  and  if,  between  the  two,  you  survey  its 
surface  critically,  it  is  literally  as  smooth  as  glass,  except 


318  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

where  the  skater  insects,  at  equal  intervals  scattered  over 
its  whole  extent,  by  their  motions  in  the  sun  produce  the 
finest  imaginable  sparkle  on  it,  or,  perchance,  a  duck  plumes 
itself,  or,  as  I  have  said,  a  swallow  skims  so  low  as  to  touch 

sit.  It  may  be  that  in  the  distance  a  fish  describes  an  arc 
of  three  or  four  feet  in  the  air,  and  there  is  one  bright  flash 
where  it  emerges,  and  another  where  it  strikes  the  water; 
sometimes  the  whole  silvery  arc  is  revealed;  or  here  and 
there,   perhaps,   is  a   thistle-down  floating  on   its  surface, 

lo  which  the  fishes  dart  at  and  so  dimple  it  again.  It  is  like 
molten  glass  cooled  but  not  congealed,  and  the  few  motes 
in  it  are  pure  and  beautiful  like  the  imperfections  in  glass. 
You  may  often  detect  a  yet  smoother  and  darker  w^ater, 
separated  from  the  rest  as  if  by  an  invisible  cobweb,  boom 

IS  of  the  water  nymphs,  resting  on  it.  From  a  hilltop'you  can 
see  a  fish  leap  in  almost  any  part;  for  not  a  pickerel  or  shiner 
picks  an  insect  from  this  smooth  surface  but  it  manifestly 
disturbs  the  equilibrium  of  the  whole  lake.  It  is  wonderful 
with  what    elaborateness   this  simple  fact  is  advertised — 

20  this  piscine  murder  will  out — and  frdm  my  distant  perch 
I  distinguish  the  circling  undulations  when  they  are  half 
a  dozen  rods  in  diameter.  You  can  even  detect  a  water- 
bug  (Gyrinus)  ceaselessly  progressing  over  the  smooth 
surface  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off;    for  they  furrow  the  water 

25  slightly,  making  a  conspicuous  ripple  bounded  by  two 
diverging  lines,  but  the  skaters  glide  over  it  without  rippling 
it  perceptibly.  When  the  surface  is  considerably  agitated 
there  are  no  skaters  nor  water-bugs  on  it,  but  apparently, 
in  calm  days,  they  leave  their  havens  and  adventurously 

30  glide  forth  from  the  shore  by  short  impulses  till  they  com- 
pletely cover  it.  It  is  a  soothing  employment,  on  one  of 
those  fine  days  in  the  fall  when  all  the  warmth  of  the  sun 
is  fully  appreciated,  to  sit  on  a  stump  on  such  a  height  as 
this,  overlooking  the  pond,  and  study  the  dimpling  circles 

35  which  are  incessantly  inscribed  on  its  otherwise  in\  isible 
surface  amid  the  reflected  skies  and  trees.  Over  this  great 
expanse  there  is  no  disturbance  but  it  is  thus  at  once  gently 


WALDEN   POND  319 

smoothed  away  and  assuaged,  as,  when  a  vase  of  water  is 
jarred,  the  trembhng  circles  seek  the  shore  and  all  is  smooth 
again.  Not  a  fish  can  leap  or  an  insect  fall  on  the  pond 
but  it  is  thus  rci)orted  in  circling  (iini[)les,  in  lines  of  beauty, 
as  it  were  the  constant  welling  u{)  of  its  fountain,  the  gentle  5 
pulsing  of  its  life,  the  heaving  of  its  breast.  The  thrills 
of  joy  and  thrills  of  pain  are  undistinguishable.  How 
peaceful  the  phenomena  of  the  lake!  Again  the  works  of 
man  shine  as  in  the  spring.  Ay,  every  leaf  and  twig  and 
stone  and  cobweb  sparkles  now  at  mid-afternoon  as  when  lo 
covered  with  dew  in  a  spring  morning.  Every  motion  of  an 
oar  or  an  insect  produces  a  flash  of  light;  and  if  an  oar 
falls,  how  sweet  the  echo! 

In  such  a  day  in  September  or  October,  Walden  is  a  per- 
fect forest  mirror,  set  round  with  stones  as  precious  to  my  15 
eye  as  if  fewer  or  rarer.     Nothing  so  fair,  so  pure,  and  at 
the  same  time  so  large,  as  a  lake,  perchance,  lies  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth.     Sky  water.     It  needs  no  fence.     Nations 
come  and  go  without  defiling  it.     It  is  a  mirror  which  no 
stone   can    crack,    whose   Cjuicksilver   will   never   wear   off,  20 
whose  gilding  Nature  continually  repairs;    no  storms,   no 
dust,  can  dim  its  surface  ever  fresh — a  mirror  in  which  all 
impurity  presented  to  it  sinks,  swept  and  dusted  by  the 
sun's  hazy  brush — this  the  light  dust-cloth — which  retains 
no  breath  that  is  breathed  on  it,  but  sends  its  own  to  float  25 
as    clouds    high    above     its     surface,     and    be     reflected 
in  its  bosom  still. 

A  field  of  water  betrays  the  spirit  that  is  in  the  air.  It  is 
continually  receiving  new  life  and  motion  from  above.  It 
is  intermediate  in  its  nature  between  land  and  sky.  On  30 
land  only  the  grass  and  trees  wave,  but  the  water  itself  is 
rippled  by  the  wind.  I  see  where  the  breeze  dashes  across 
it  by  the  streaks  or  flakes  of  light.  It  is  remarkable  that 
we  can  look  down  on  its  surface.  We  shall,  perhaps,  look 
down  thus  on  the  surface  of  air  at  length,  and  mark  where  35 
a  still  subtler  spirit  sweeps  over  it. 

The    skaters    and    water-bugs    finally    disappear    in    the 


320  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

latter  part  of  October,  when  the  severe  frosts  have  come; 
and  then  and  in  November,  usually,  on  a  calm  day,  there 
is  absolutely  nothing  to  ripple  the  surface.  One  Novem- 
ber afternoon,  in  the  calm  at  the  end  of  a  rain  storm  of 
5  several  days'  duration,  when  the  sky  was  still  completely 
overcast  and  the  air  w^as  full  of  mist,  I  observed  that  the 
pond  was  remarkably  smooth,  so  that  it  was  difficult  to 
distinguish  its  surface;  though  it  no  longer  reflected  the 
bright  tints  of  October,  but  the  somber  November  colors 

loof  the  surrounding  hills.  Though  I  passed  over  it  as  gently 
as  possible,  the  slight  undulations  produced  by  my  boat 
extended  almost  as  far  as  I  could  see,  and  gave  a  ribbed 
appearance  to  the  reflections.  But,  as  I  was  looking  over 
the  surface,  I  saw  here  and  there  at  a  distance  a  faint  glim- 

15  mer,  as  if  some  skater  insects  which  had  escaped  the  frosts 
might  be  collected  there,  or,  perchance,  the  surface,  being 
so  smooth,  betrayed  where  a  spring  welled  up  from  the  bot- 
tom. Paddling  gently  to  one  of  these  places,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  myself  surrounded  by^iyriads  of  small  perch, 

20  about  five  inches  long,  of  a  rich  bronze  color  in  the  green 
water,  sporting  there  and  constantly  rising  to  the  surface 
and  dimpling  it,  sometimes  leaving  bubbles  on  it.  In  such 
transparent  and  seemingly  bottomless  water,  reflecting  the 
clouds,  I  seemed  to  be  floating  through  the  air  as  in  a  balloon, 

25  and  their  swimming  impressed  me  as  a  kind  of  flight  or 
hovering,  as  if  they  were  a  compact  flock  of  birds  passing 
just  beneath  my  level  on  the  right  or  left,  their  fins,  like 
sails,  set  all  around  them.  There  were  many  such  schools  in 
the  pond,   apparently  improving   the  short  season  before 

30  winter  would  draw  an  icy  shutter  over  their  broad  skyhght, 
sometimes  giving  to  the  surface  an  appearance  as  if  a  slight 
breeze  struck  it,  or  a  few  rain-drops  fell  there.  When  I 
approached  carelessly  and  alarmed  them,  they  made  a 
sudden  plash  and  rippling  with  their  tails,  as  if  one  had 

35  struck  the  water  with  a  brushy  bough,  and  instantly  took 
refuge  in  the  depths.  At  length  the  wind  rose,  the  mist 
increased,  and  the  waves  began  to  run,  and  the  perch  leaped 


WALDEN  POND  321 

much  higher  than  before,  half  out  of  water,  a  hundred 
black  points,  three  inches  long,  at  once  above  the  surface. 
Even  as  late  as  the  fifth  of  December,  one  year,  I  saw  some 
dimples  on  the  surface,  and  thinking  it  was  going  to  rain 
hard  immediately,  the  air  being  full  of  mist,  I  made  haste  S 
to  take  my  place  at  the  oars  and  row  homeward;  already 
the  rain  seemed  rapidly  increasing,  though  I  felt  none  on 
my  cheek,  and  I  anticipated  a  thorough  soaking.  But 
suddenly  the  dimples  ceased,  for  they  were  produced  by  the 
perch,  which  the  noise  of  my  oars  had  scared  into  the  depths,  lo 
and  I  saw  their  schools  dimly  disappearing;  so  I  spent  a 
dry  afternoon  after  all. 

An  old  man  who  used  to  frequent  this  pond  nearly  sixty 
years  ago,  when  it  was  dark  with  surrounding  forests,  tells 
me  that  in  those  days  he  sometimes  saw  it  all  alive  with  15 
ducks   and  other  water  fowl,  and   that   there  were  many 
eagles  about  it.     He  came  here  a-fishing,  and  used  an  old 
log  canoe  which  he  found  on  the  shore.     It  was  made  of 
two  white-pine  logs  dug  out  and  pinned  together,  and  was 
cut  off  square  at  the  ends.     It  was  very  clumsy,  but  lasted  20 
a  great  many  years  before  it  became  water-logged  and  per- 
haps sank  to  the  bottom.     He  did  not  know  whose  it  was; 
it  belonged  to  the  pond.     He  used  to  make  a  cable  for  his 
anchor  of  strips  of  hickory  bark  lied  together.     An  old  man, 
a  potter,  who  lived  by  the  pond  before  the  Revolution,  told  25 
him  once  that  there  was  an  iron  chest  at  the  bottom,  and  that 
he  had  seen  it.     Sometimes  it  would  come  floating  up  to  the 
shore;   but  when  you  went  toward  it,  it  would  go  back  into 
deep  water  and  disappear.     I  was  pleased  to  hear  of  the  old 
log  canoe,  which  took  the  place  of  an  Indian  one  of  the  same  30 
material  but  more  graceful  construction,  which  perchance 
had  first  been  a  tree  on  the  bank,  and  then,  as  it  were, 
fell  into  the  water,  to  float  there  for  a  generation,  the  most 
proper  vessel  for  the  lake.     I  remember  that  when  I  ^  first 
looked   into   these   depths   there   were   many   large   trunks  35 
to  be  seen  indistinctly  lying  on  the  bottom,  which  had  either 
been   blown   over   formcrl}-,  or  left  on  the  ice  at  the  last 


322  HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

cutting,  when  wood  was  cheaper;  but  now  they  have  mostly 
disappeared. 

When  I  first  paddled  a  boat  on  Walden,  it  was  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  thick  and  lofty  pine  and  oak  woods, 
S  and  in  some  of  its  coves  grape  vines  had  run  over  the  trees 
next  the  water  and  formed  bowers  under  which  a  boat 
could  pass.  The  hills  which  form  its  shores  are  so  steep, 
and  the  woods  on  them  were  then  so  high,  that,  as  you 
looked  down   from  the  west  end,   it  had   the  appearance 

loof  an  amphitheatre  for  some  kind  of  sylvan  spectacle. 
I  have  spent  many  an  hour,  when  I  was  younger,  floating 
over  its  surface  as  the  zephyr  willed,  having  paddled  my 
boat  to  the  middle,  and  lying  on  my  back  across  the  seats, 
in  a  summer  forenoon,  dreaming  awake,  until  I  was  aroused 

15  by  the  boat  touching  the  sand,  and  I  arose  to  see  what 
shore  my  fates  had  impelled  me  to;  days  when  idleness 
was  the  most  attractive  and  productive  industry.  Many 
a  forenoon  have  I  stolen  away,  preferring  to  spend  thus  the 
most  valued  part  of  the  day;   for  I  was  rich,  if  not  in  money, 

20 in  sunny  hours  and  summer  days,  3ft\d  spent  them  lavishly; 
nor  do  I  regret  that  I  did  not  waste  more  of  them  in  the 
workshop  or  at  the  teacher's  desk.  But  since  I  left  those 
shores  the  wood-choppers  have  still  further  laid  them  waste, 
and  now  for  many  a  year  there  will  be  no  more  rambling 

25  through  the  aisles  of  the  wood,  with  occasional  vistas  through 
which  you  see  the  water.  My  Muse  may  be  excused  if  she 
is  silent  henceforth.  How  can  you  expect  the  birds  to  sing 
when  their  groves  are  cut  down? 

Now  the  trunks  of  trees  on  the  bottom,  and  the  old  log 

30  canoe,  and  the  dark  surrounding  woods,  are  gone,  and 
the  villagers,  who  scarcely  know  where  it  lies,  instead  of 
going  to  the  pond  to  bathe  or  drink,  are  thinking  to  bring 
its  water,  which  should  be  as  sacred  as  the  Ganges  at  least, 
to  the  village  in  a  pipe,  to  wash  their  dishes  with! — to  earn 

35  their  Walden  by  the  turning  of  a  cock  or  drawing  of  a  plug! 
That  devilish  Iron  Horse,  whose  ear-rending  neigh  is  heard 
throughout  the  town,  has  muddied  the  Boiling  Spring  with 


WALDEN   POND  323 

his  foot,  and  he  it  is  that  has  browsed  off  all  the  woods  on 
Walden  shore;  that  Trojan  horse,  with  a  thousand  men  in 
his  belly,  introduced  by  mercenary  Greeks!  Where  is  the 
country's  champion,  the  Moore  of  Moore  Hall,  ^  to  meet 
him  at  the  Deep  Cut  and  thrust  an  avenging  lance  between  5 
the  ribs  of  the  bloated  pest? 

Nevertheless,  of  all  the  characters  I  have  known,  perhaps 
Walden  wears  best,  and  best  preserves  its  purity.  Many 
men  have  been  likened  to  it,  but  few  deserve  that  honor. 
Though  the  wood-choppers  have  laid  bare  first  this  shore  10 
and  then  that,  and  the  Irish  have  built  their  sties  by  it, 
and  the  railroad  has  infringed  on  its  border,  and  the  ice-men 
have  skimmed  it  once,  it  is  itself  unchanged,  the  same 
water  which  my  youthful  eyes  fell  on;  all  the  change  is  in 
me.  It  has  not  acquired  one  permanent  wrinkle  after  all  15 
its  ripples.  It  is  perennially  young,  and  I  may  stand  and 
see  a  swallow  dip  apparently  to  pick  an  insect  from  its 
surface  as  of  yore.  It  struck  me  again  to-night,  as  if  I  had 
not  seen  it  almost  daily  for  more  than  twenty  years — Why, 
here  is  Walden,  the  same  woodland  lake  that  I  discovered  20 
so  many  years  ago;  where  a  forest  was  cut  down  last  winter 
another  is  springing  up  by  its  shore  as  lustily  as  ever;  the 
same  thought  is  welling  up  to  its  surface  that  was  then; 
it  is  the  same  liquid  joy  and  happiness  to  itself  and  its  Maker, 
ay,  and  it  may  be  to  me.  It  is  the  work  of  a  brave  man,  25 
surely,  in  whom  there  was  no  guile!  He  rounded  this  water 
with  his  hand,  deepened  and  clarified  it  in  his  thought,  and 
in  his  will  bequeathed  it  to  Concord.  I  see  by  its  face  that 
it  is  visited  by  the  same  reflection;  and  I  can  almost  say, 
Walden,  is  it  you?  30 

It  is  no  dream  of  mine, 

To  ornament  a  line; 

I  cannot  come  nearer  to  God  and  Heaven 

Than  I  live  to  Walden  even.  v 

I  am  its  stony  shore,  35 

And  the  breeze  that  passes  o'er; 

'  The  hero  of  an  old  ballad. 


324  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

In  Ihe  hollow  of  my  hand 
Arc  its  water  and  its  sand, 
And  its  deepest  resort 
Lies  high  in  my  thought. 

5  The  cars  never  pause  to  look  at  it;  yet  I  fancy  that  the 
engineers  and  firemen  and  brakemen,  and  those  passengers 
who  have  a  season  ticket  and  see  it  often,  are  better  men 
for  the  sight.  The  engineer  does  not  forget  at  night,  or 
his   nature   does    not,  that    he    has    beheld    this    vision  of 

lo  serenity  and  purity  once  at  least  during  the  day.     Though 

seen  but  once,  it  helps  to  wash  out  State-street  and  the 

engine's  soot.     One  proposes  that  it  be  called  "  God's  Drop." 

I  have  said  that  Walden  has  no  visible  inlet  or  outlet, 

but  it  is  on  the  one  hand  distantly  and  indirectly  related 

IS  to  Flint's  Pond,  which  is  more  elevated,  by  a  chain  of 
small  ponds  coming  from  that  quarter,  and  on  the  other 
directly  and  manifestly  to  Concord  River,  which  is  lower, 
by  a  similar  chain  of  ponds  th/ough  which  in  some  other 
geological  period  it  may  have  flowed;  and  by  a  little  dig- 

2oging,  which  God  forbid,  it  can  be  made  to  flow  thither 
again.  If  by  living  thus  reserved  and  austere,  like  a  hermit 
in  the  woods,  so  long,  it  has  acquired  such  wonderful  purity, 
who  would  not  regret  that  the  comparatively  impure  waters 
of  Flint's  Pond  should  be  mingled  with  it,  or  itself  should 

25  ever  go  to  waste  its  sweetness  in  the  ocean  wave? 


SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN 

A.      LEAFAGE  OF  TREES  ^ 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  characters  of  natural  leafage 
is  the  constancy  with  which,  while  the  leaves  are  arranged 
on  the  spray  with  exquisite  regularity,  that  regularity  is 
modified  in  their  actual  effect.  For  as  in  every  group  of 
leaves  some  are  seen  sideways,  forming  merely  long  lines,  5 
some  foreshortened,  some  crossing  each  other,  every  one 
differently  turned  and  placed  from  all  the  others,  the  forms 
of  the  leaves,  though  in  themselves  similar,  give  rise  to  a 
thousand  strange  and  differing  forms  in  the  group;  and 
the  shadows  of  some,  passing  over  the  others,  still  farther  10 
disguise  and  confuse  the  mass  until  the  eye  can  distinguish 
nothing  but  a  graceful  and  flexil)le  disorder  of  innumerable 
forms,  with  here  and  there  a  perfect  leaf  on  the  extremity, 
or  a  symmetrical  association  of  one  or  two,  just  enough 
to  mark  the  specific  character  and  to  give  unity  and  grace,  15 
but  never  enough  to  repeat  in  one  group  what  was  done  in 
another,  never  enough  to  prevent  the  eye  from  feeling  that, 
however  regular  and  mathematical  may  be  the  structure 
of  parts,  what  is  composed  out  of  them  is  as  various  and 
infinite  as  any  other  part  of  nature.  Nor  does  this  take  20 
place  in  general  effect  only.  Break  off  an  elm  bough  three 
feet  long,  in  full  leaf,  and  lay  it  on  the  table  before  you,  and 
try  to  draw  it,  leaf  for  leaf.  It  is  ten  to  one  if  in  the  whole 
bough  (provided  you  do  not  twist  it  about  as  you  work) 
you  find  one  form  of  leaf  exactly  like  another;  perhaps  you  25 
will  not  even  have  one  complete.  Every  leaf  will  be  oblique, 
or  foreshortened,  or  curled,  or  crossed  by  another,  or  shaded 

1  From  "  INIodcrn  Painters,  "  Vol.  I,  1S43,  Pt.  II,  Sec.  VI   Chapter  I. 

325 


320  SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN 

by  another,  or  have  something  or  other  the  matter  with  it; 
and  though  the  whole  bough  will  look  graceful,  and  sym- 
metrical, }'ou  will  scarcely  be  able  to  tell  how  or  why  it  does 
so,  since  there  is  not  one  line  of  it  Hke  another.  .  .  . 
5  But  if  Nature  is  so  various  when  you  have  a  bough  on 
the  table  before  you,  what  must  she  be  when  she  retires  from 
you,  and  gives  you  her  whole  mass  and  multitude?  The 
leaves  then  at  the  extremities  become  as  fine  as  dust,  a  mere 
confusion  of  points    and   lines   between  you  and  the  sky, 

loa  confusion  which  you  might  as  well  hope  to  draw  sea-sand 
particle  by  particle,  as  to  imitate  leaf  for  leaf.  This,  as  it 
comes  down  into  the  body  of  the  tree,  gets  closer,  but  never 
opaque;  it  is  always  transparent,  with  crumbling  lights  in 
it  letting  you  through  to  the  sky;    then,  out  of  this,  come, 

15  heavier  and  heavier,  the  masses  of  illumined  foliage,  all 
dazzling  and  inextricable,  save  here  and  there  a  single  leaf 
on  the  extremities;  then,  unde-  these,  you  get  deep  passages 
of  broken  irregular  gloom,  passing  into  transparent,  green- 
lighted,  misty  hollows;    the  twiste^  stems  glancing  through 

20  them  in  their  pale  and  entangled  infinity,  and  the  shafted 
sunbeams,  rained  from  above,  running  along  the  lustrous 
leaves  for  an  instant;  then  lost,  then  caught  again  on  some 
emerald  bank  or  knotted  root,  to  be  sent  up  again  with  a 
faint  reflex  on  the  white  under-sides  of  dim  groups  of  droop- 

25  ing  foliage,  the  shadows  of  the  upper  boughs  running  in 
grey  network  down  the  glossy  stems,  and  resting  in  quiet 
chequers  upon  the  glittering  earth;  but  all  penetrable  and 
transparent,  and,  in  proportion,  inextricable  and  incom- 
prehensible, except  where  across  the  labyrinth  and  the  mys- 

30  tery  of  the  dazzling  light  and  dream-like  shadow,  falls,  close 
to  us,  some  solitary  spray,  some  wreath  of  two  or  three 
motionless,  large  leaves,  the  type  and  embodying  of  all  that 
in  the  rest  we  feel  and  imagine,  but  can  never  see. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN  327 


B.      WATER  ' 

Of  all  inorganic  substances,  acting  in  their  own  proper 
nature,  and  without  assistance  or  combination,  water  is 
the  most  wonderful.  If  we  think  of  it  as  the  source  of  all 
the  changefulness  and  beauty  which  we  have  seen  in  clouds; 
then  as  the  instrument  by  which  the  earth  we  have  con-  5 
templated  was  modelled  into  symmetry,  and  its  crags 
chiselled  into  grace;  then  as,  in  the  form  of  snow,  it  robes 
the  mountains  it  has  made,  with  that  transcendent  light 
which  we  could  not  have  conceived  if  we  had  not  seen;  then 
as  it  exists  in  the  foam  of  the  torrent,  in  the  iris  which  spans  10 
it,  in  the  morning  mist  which  rises  from  it,  in  the  deep 
crystalline  pools  which  mirror  its  hanging  shore,  in  the 
broad  lake  and  glancing  river;  finally,  in  that  which  is  to 
all  human  minds  the  best  emblem  of  unwearied,  uncon- 
querable power,  the  wild,  various,  fantastic,  tameless  unity  15 
of  the  sea;  what  shall  we  compare  to  this  mighty,  this 
universal  element,  for  glory  and  for  beauty?  or  how  shall 
we  follow  its  eternal  changefulness  of  feeling?  It  is  like 
trying  to  paint  a  soul. 

To  suggest  the  ordinary  appearance  of  calm   water,   to  20 
lay  on  canvas  as  much  evidence  of  surface  and  reflection 
as  may  make  us  understand   that  water  is  meant,  is,  per- 
haps, the  easiest  task  of  art;    and  even  ordinary  running 
or  falling  water  may  be  sufficiently  rendered,  by  observing 
careful  curves  of  projection  with  a  dark  ground,  and  breaking  25 
a  little  white  over  it,  as  we  see  done  with  judgment  and 
truth  by  Ruysdael.     But  to  paint  the  actual  play  of  hue 
on  the  reflective  surface,  or  to  give  the  forms  and  fury  of 
water  when  it  begins  to  show  itself;    to  give  the  flashing 
and  rocket-like  velocity  of  a  noble  cataract,  or  the  precision  30 
and  grace  of  the  sea  wave,  so  exquisitely  modelled,  though 
so  mockingly  transient,  so  mountainous  in  its  form,  yet  so 
cloudHke  in  its  motion,  with  its  variety  and  delicacy  of  colour, 

1  From  '■  Modern  Painters,"  \'ol.  I,  Pi.  II,  Sec.  V,  Chapter  I. 


328  SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN 

when  every  ripple  and  wreath  has  some  peculiar  passage  of 
reflection  upon  itself  alone,  and  the  radiating  and  scintillat- 
ing sunbeams  are  mixed  with  the  dim  hues  of  transparent 
depth  and  dark  rock  below— to  do  this  perfectly  is  beyond 
5  the  power  of  man;  to  do  it  even  partially  has  been  granted 
to  but  one  or  two,  even  of  those  few  who  have  dared  to 
attempt  it.  .  .  . 

The  fact  is  that  there  is  hardly  a  road-side  pond  or  pool 
which  has  not  as  much  landscape  in  it  as  above  it.     It  is  not 

lothe  brown,  muddy,  dull  thing  we  suppose  it  to  be;  it  has  a 
heart  like  ourselves,  and  in  the  bottom  of  that  there  are  the 
boughs  of  the  tall  trees,  and  the  blades  of  the  shaking  grass, 
and  all  manner  of  hues  of  variable  pleasant  light  out  of  the 
sky.     Nay,  the  ugly  gutter,  that  stagnates  over  the  drain- 

15  bars  in  the  heart  of  the  foul  city,  is  not  altogether  base; 
down  in  that,  if  you  will  look  deep  enough,  you  may  see  the 
dark  serious  blue  of  far-off  sky,  and  the  passing  of  pure 
clouds.  It  is  at  your  own  will  that  you  see  in  that  despised 
stream  either  the  refuse  of  the  street,  or  the  image  of  the 

20  sky.  So  it  is  with  almost  all  other  things  that  we  unkindly 
despise. 

C,      THE  MOUNTAIN  GLORY  ^ 

The  best  image  which  the  world  can  give  of  Paradise  is 
in  the  slope  of  the  meadows,  orchards,  and  corn-fields  on  the 
_  sides  of  a  great  Alp,  with  its  purple  rocks  and  eternal  snows 
^  above;  this  excellence  not  being  in  any  wise  a  matter  referable 
to  feeling,  or  individual  preferences,  but  demonstrable 
by  calm  enumeration  of  the  number  of  lovely  colours  on  the 
rocks,  the  varied  grouping  of  the  trees,  and  quantity  of  noble 
incidents  in  stream,  crag,  or  cloud,  presented  to  the  eye  at 
any  given  moment. 

For  consider,  first,  the  difference  produced  in  the  whole 
tone  of  landscape  colour  by  the  introductions  of  purple, 
violet,  and  deep  ultramarine  blue,  which  we  owe  to  moun- 

1  From  "  ■Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  IV,  1856,  Chapter  XX. 


SELECTIONS   FROM  KUSKIN  329 

tains.  In  an  ordinary  lowland  landscape  we  have  the  blue 
of  the  sky;  the  green  of  grass,  which  I  will  su[)pose  (and  this 
is  an  unnecessary  concession  to  the  lowlands)  entirely  fresh 
and  bright;  the  green  of  trees;  and  certain  elements  of 
purple,  far  more  rich  and  beautiful  than  we  generally  should  5 
think,  in  their  bark  and  shadows  (bare  hedges  and  thickets, 
or  tops  of  trees,  in  subdued  afternoon  sunshine,  are  nearly 
perfect  purjile,  and  of  an  exquisite  tone),  as  well  as  in  ploughed 
fields,  and  dark  ground  in  general.  But  among  mountains, 
in  addition  to  all  this,  large  unbroken  spaces  of  pure  violet  lo 
and  purple  are  introduced  in  their  distances;  and  even  near, 
by  films  of  cloud  passing  over  the  darkness  of  ravines  or 
forests,  blues  are  produced  of  the  most  subtle  tenderness; 
these  azures  and  purples  passing  into  rose-colour  of  other- 
wise wholly  unattainable  delicacy  among  the  upper  summits,  15 
the  blue  of  the  sky  being  at  the  same  time  purer  and  deeper 
than  in  the  plains.  Nay,  in  some  sense,  a  person  who  has 
never  seen  the  rose-colour  of  the  rays  of  dawn  crossing  a 
blue  mountain  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  away,  can  hardly 
be  said  to  know  what  tenderness  in  colour  means  at  all;  bright  20 
tenderness  he  may,  indeed,  see  in  the  sky  or  in  a  flower, 
but  this  grave  tenderness  of  the  faraway  hill-purples  he 
cannot  conceive. 

Together  with  this  great  source  of  pre-eminence  in  mass 
of  colour,  we  have  to  estimate  the  influence  of  the  finished  25 
inlaying  and  enamel-work  of  the  colour- jewellery  on  every 
stone;   and  that  of  the  continual  variety  in  species  of  flower; 
most   of   the    mountain    flowers   being,    besides,   separately 
lovelier  than  the  lowland  ones.     The  wood  hyacinth  and  the 
wild  rose  are,   indeed,   the  only  supreme  flowers   that  the  30 
lowlands  can  generally  show;    and  the  wild  rose  is  also  a 
mountaineer,  and  more  fragrant  in  the  hills,  while  the  wood 
hyacinth,  at  its  best,  caimot  match  even  the  dark  bell-gentian, 
leaving  the  light-blue  star-gentian  in  its  uncontested  queen- 
liness,  and  the  Alpine  rose  and   Highland  heather  wholly  35 
without  similitude.     The  violet,  lily  of  the  valley,  crocus, 
and  wood  anemone  are,  I  su[)pose,  claimable  partly  by  the 


330  SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN 

])Iains  as  well  as  the  hills;  but  the  large  orange  lily  and 
narcissus  I  have  never  seen  but  on  hill  pastures,  and  the 
exquisite  oxalis  is  pre-eminently  a  mountaineer. 

To  this  supremacy  in  mosses  and  flowers  we  have  next 
5  to  add  an  inestimable  gain  in  the  continual  presence  and 
power  of  water.  Neither  in  its  clearness,  its  colour,  its 
fantasy  of  motion,  its  calmness  of  space,  depth,  and  reflec- 
tion, or  its  wrath,  can  water  be  conceived  by  a  lowlander, 
out  of  sight  of  sea.     A  sea  wave  is  far  grander  than  any 

lo  torrent — but  of  the  sea  and  its  influences  we  are  not  now 
speaking;  and  the  sea  itself,  though  it  can  be  clear,  is  never 
calm,  among  our  shores,  in  the  sense  that  a  mountain  lake 
can  be  calm.  The  sea  seems  only  to  pause;  the  mountain 
lake  to  sleep,  and  to  dream.     Out  of  sight  of  the  ocean  a 

15  lowlander  cannot  be  considered  ever  to  have  seen  water  at 
all.  The  mantling  of  the  pools  in  the  rock  shadows,  with  the 
golden  flakes  of  light  sinking  down  through  them  Hke  faUing 
leaves,  the  ringing  of  the  thin  currents  among  the  shallows, 
the  flash  and  the  cloud  of  the  pascade,  the  earthquake  and 

20  foam-fire  of  the  cataract,  the  long  hues  of  alternate  mirror 

and  mist  that  lull  the  imagery  of  the  hills  reversed  in  the 

blue  of  morning, — all  these  things  belong  to  those  hills  as 

their  undi\ided  inheritance. 

To  this  supremacy  in  wave  and  stream  is  joined  a  no  less 

25  manifest  pre-eminence  in  the  character  of  trees.  It  is 
possible  among  plains,  in  the  species  of  trees  which  properly 
belong  to  them,  the  poplars  of  Amiens,  for  instance,  to 
obtain  a  serene  simplicity  of  grace,  which,  as  I  said,  is  a 
better  help  to  the  study  of  gracefulness,  as  such,  than  any 

30 of  the  wilder  groupings  of  the  hills;  so,  also,  there  are  cer- 
tain conditions  of  symmetrical  luxuriance  developed  in  the 
park  and  avenue,  rarely  rivalled  in  their  way  among  moun- 
tains; and  yet  the  mountain  superiority  in  foliage  is,  on  the 
whole,  nearly  as  complete  as  it  is  in  water:    for  exactly  as 

35  there  are  some  expressions  in  the  broad  reaches  of  a  navigable 
lowland  river,  such  as  the  Loire  or  Thames,  not,  in  their 
way,  to  be  matched  among  the  rock  rivers,  and  yet  for  all 


SELECTIONS   FROM  RUSKIN  331 

that  a  lowlander  cannot  be  said  to  have  truly  seen  the  ele- 
ment of  water  at  all;  so  even  in  the  richest  parks  and 
avenues  he  cannot  be  said  to  have  truly  seen  trees.  For 
the  resources  of  trees  are  not  developed  until  they  have 
difficulty  to  contend  with;  neither  their  tenderness  of  s 
brotherly  love  and  harmony,  till  they  are  forced  to  choose 
their  ways  of  various  life  where  there  is  contracted  room 
for  them,  talking  to  each  other  with  their  restrained  branches. 
The  various  action  of  trees  rooting  themselves  in  inhospitable 
rocks,  stooping  to  look  into  ravines,  hiding  from  the  search  lo 
of  glacier  winds,  reaching  forth  to  the  rays  of  rare  sunshine, 
crowding  down  together  to  drink  at  sweetest  streams, 
climbing  hand  in  hand  among  the  difficult  slopes,  opening  in 
sudden  dances  round  the  mossy  knolls,  gathering  into  com- 
panies at  rest  among  the  fragrant  fields,  gliding  in  grave  15 
procession  over  the  heavenward  ridges — nothing  of  this  can 
be  conceived  among  the  unvexed  and  unvaried  felicities 
of  the  lowland  forest:  while  to  all  these  direct  sources  of 
greater  beauty  are  added,  first  the  power  of  redundance, — 
the  mere  quantity  of  foliage;  visible  in  the  folds  and  on  the  20 
])romontories  of  a  single  Alj)  being  greater  than  that  of  an 
entire  lowland  landscape  (unless  a  view  from  some  cathedral 
tower);  and  to  this  charm  of  redundance,  that  of  clearer 
visibility, — tree  after  tree  being  constantly  shown  in  successive 
height,  one  behind  another,  instead  of  the  mere  tops  and  25 
flanks  of  masses,  as  in  the  plains;  and  the  forms  of  multitudes 
of  them  continually  defined  against  the  clear  sky,  near  and 
above,  or  against  white  clouds  entangled  among  their 
branches,  instead  of  being  confused  in  dimness  of  distance. 

Finally,  to  this  supremacy  in  foliage  we  have  to  add  the  30 
still  less  questionable  supremacy  in  clouds.  There  is  no 
effect  of  sky  possible  in  the  lowlands  which  ma}'  not  in  equal 
perfection  be  seen  among  the  hills;  but  there  are  effects 
by  tens  of  thousands,  for  ever  invisible  and  inconceivable 
to  the  inhabitant  of  the  plains,  manifested  among  the  hills  35 
in  the  course  of  one  day.  The  mere  power  of  familiarity 
with  the  clouds,  of  walking  with  them  and  above  them, 


332  SELECTIONS  FROM  RUSKIN 

alters  and  renders  clear  our  whole  conception  of  the  baseless 
architecture  of  the  sky;  and  for  the  beauty  of  it,  there  is 
more  in  a  single  wreath  of  early  cloud,  pacing  its  way  up  an 
avenue  of  pines,  or  pausing  among  the  points  of  their  fringes, 
S  than  in  all  the  white  heaps  that  fill  the  arched  sky  of  the 
plains  from  one  horizon  to  the  other.  And  of  the  nobler 
cloud  manifestations, — ^the  breaking  of  their  troublous 
seas  against  the  crags,  their  black  spray  sparkling  with 
lightning;    or  the  going  forth  of  the  morning  along  their 

lo  pavements  of  moving  marble,  level-laid  between  dome  and 
dome  of  snow; — of  these  things  there  can  be  as  little  imagina- 
tion or  understanding  in  an  inhabitant  of  the  plains  as  of 
the  scenery  of  another  planet  than  his  own. 

And,  observe,  all  these  superiorities  are  matters  plainly 

15  measurable  and  calculable,  not  in  any  wise  to  be  referred 
to  estimate  of  sensatitn.  Of  the  grandeur  or  expression  of 
the  hills  I  have  not  spoken;  how  far  they  are  great,  or  strong, 
or  terrible,  I  do  not  for  the  moment  consider,  because  vast- 
ness,  and  strength,  and  terror,  are  not  to  all  minds  subjects 

20  of  desired  contemplation.  It  mfty  make  no  difference  to 
some  men  whether  a  natural  object  be  large  or  small,  whether 
it  be  strong  or  feeble.  But  loveliness  of  colour,  pcrfectness 
of  form,  endlessness  of  change,  wonderfulness  of  structure, 
are  precious  to  all  undiseased  human  minds;   and  the  supe- 

25  riority  of  the  mountains  in  all  these  things  to  the  lowland 
is,  I  repeat,  as  measurable  as  the  richness  of  a  painted  win- 
dow matched  with  a  white  one,  or  the  wealth  of  a  museum 
compared  with  that  of  a  simply  furnished  chamber. 
They  seem  to  have  been  built  for  the  human  race,  as  at  once 

30  their  schools  and  cathedrals;  full  of  treasures  of  illuminated 
manuscript  for  the  scholar,  kindly  in  simple  lessons  to  the 
worker,  quiet  in  pale  cloisters  for  the  thinker,  glorious  in 
holiness  for  the  worshipper. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  KUSKIN  333 


D.      SPLENDOURS  OF  SUNSET  ^ 

We  have  been  sj)eaking  hitherto  of  what  is  constant  and 
necessary  in  nature,  of  the  ordinary  efTects  of  dayhght  on 
ordinary  colours,  and  we  repeat  again  that  no  gorgeousness 
of  the  pallet  can  reach  even  these.  But  it  is  a  widely  dif- 
ferent thing  when  Nature  herself  takes  a  colouring  fit,  and  5 
does  something  extraordinary,  something  really  to  exhibit 
her  power.  .She  has  a  thousand  ways  and  means  of  ris- 
ing above  herself,  but  incomj^arably  the  noblest  manifesta- 
tions of  her  capability  of  colour  arc  in  these  sunsets  among 
the  high  clouds.  I  speak  especially  of  the  moment  before  10 
the  sun  sinks,  when  his  light  turns  pure  rose-colour,  and  when 
this  light  falls  upon  a  zenith  covered  with  countless  cloud- 
forms  of  inconceivable  delicacy,  threads  and  flakes  of  vapour, 
which  would  in  common  daylight  be  pure  snow-white,  and 
which  give,  therefore,  fair  field  to  the  tone  of  light.  There  is,  is 
then,  no  limit  to  the  multitude,  and  no  check  to  the  intensity, 
of  the  hues  assumed.  The  whole  sky  from  the  zenith  to  the 
horizon  becomes  one  molten  mantling  sea  of  colour  and 
fire;  every  black  bar  turns  into  massy  gold,  every  ripple 
and  wave  into  unsullied  shadowless  crimson,  and  purple,  20 
and  scarlet,  and  colours  for  which  there  are  no  words  in 
language,  and  no  ideas  in  the  mind — things  which  can  only 
be  conceived  while  they  are  visible;  the  intense  hollow 
blue  of  the  upper  sky  melting  through  it  all,  showing  here 
deep,  and  pure,  and  lightless;  there,  modulated  by  the 25 
filmy  formless  body  of  the  transparent  vapour,  till  it  is 
lost  imperceptibly  in  its  crimson  and  gold.  The  concur- 
rence of  circumstances  necessary  to  produce  the  sunsets 
of  which  I  speak  does  not  take  place  above  five  or 
six  times  in  a  summer,  and  then  only  for  a  space  of  from  30 
five  to  ten  minutes,  just  as  the  sun  reaches  the  horizon. 
Considering  how  seldom  people  think  of  looking  for  a  sun- 
set at  all,  and  how  seldom,  if  they  do,  they  are  in  a  position 

'  From  "  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  I,  Pt.  II,  Sec.  II,  Chapter  II. 


334  SELECTIONS   FROM   RUSKIN 

from  which  it  can  be  fully  seen,  the  chances  that  their 
attention  should  be  awake,  and  their  position  favourable, 
during  these  few  flying  instants  of  the  year,  are  almost  as 
nothing.     What  can  the  citizen,  who  can  see  only  the  red 

5  light  on  the  canvas  of  the  wagon  at  the  end  of  the  street, 
and  the  crimson  colour  of  the  bricks  of  his  neighbour's 
chimney,  know  of  the  flood  of  fire  which  deluges  the  sky 
from  the  horizon  to  the  zenith?  What  can  even  the  quiet 
inhabitant  of  the  English  lowlands,   whose  scene  for  the 

[o  manifestation  of  the  fire  of  heaven  is  Umited  to  the  tops  of 
hayricks,  and  the  rooks'  nests  in  the  old  elm  trees,  know 
of  the  mighty  passages  of  splendour  which  are  tossed  from 
Alp  to  Alp  over  the  azure  of  a  thousand  miles  of  champaign? 
Even   granting   the   constant   vigour   of   observation,    and 

15  supposing  the  possession  of  such  impossible  knowledge, 
it  needs  but  a  moment's  reflection  to  prove  how  incapable 
the  memory  is  of  retaining  for  any  time  the  distinct  image  of 
the  sources  even  of  its  most  vivid  impressions.  What 
recollection  have  we  of  the  sunsets  which  dehghted  us  last 

20 year?  We  may  know  that  the>'  were  magnificent,  or  glow- 
ing, but  no  distinct  image  of  colour  or  form  is  retained — 
nothing  of  whose  degree  (for  the  great  difficulty  with  the 
memory  is  to  retain,  not  facts,  but  degrees  of  fact)  we  could 
be  so  certain  as  to  say  of  anything  now  presented  to  us, 

25  that  it  is  like  it.  If  we  did  say  so,  we  should  be  wrong; 
for  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  the  energy  of  an  impression 
fades  from  the  memory,  and  becomes  more  and  more 
indistinct  every  day;  and  thus  we  compare  a  faded  and 
indistinct   image  with  the  decision  and    certainty  of    one 

50  present  to  the  senses.  How  constantly  do  we  affirm  that 
the  thunderstorm  of  last  week  was  the  most  terrible  one  we 
ever  saw  in  our  lives,  because  we  compare  it,  not  with  the 
thunderstorm  of  last  year,  but  with  the  faded  and  feeble 
recollection  of  it. 


THE  S iUlCS  1 
William  Edward  Hartpole  Lecky 

The  Stoics  asserted  two  cardinal  principles — that  virtue 
was  the  sole  legitimate  object  to  be  aspired  to,  and  that  it 
involved  so  complete  an  ascendancy  of  the  reason  as  alto- 
gether to  extinguish  the  affections.  The  Peripatetics  and 
many  other  philosophers,  who  derived  their  opinions  chiefly  5 
from  Plato,  endeavoured  to  soften  down  the  exaggeration 
of  these  principles.  They  admitted  that  virtue  was  an  object 
wholly  distinct  from  interest,  and  that  it  should  be  the 
leading  motive  of  life;  but  they  maintained  that  happiness 
was  also  a  good,  and  a  certain  regard  for  it  legitimate.  They  10 
admitted  that  virtue  consisted  in  the  supremacy]  of  the 
reason  over  the  affections,  but  they  allowed  the  exercise 
of  the  latter  within  restricted  limits.  The  main  distinguish- 
ing features,  however,  of  stoicism,  the  unselfish  ideal  and  the 
controlling  reason,  were  acquiesced  in,  and  each  represents  15 
an  important  side  of  the  ancient  conception  of  excellence 
which  we  must  now  proceed  to  examine. 

In  the  first  we  ma}-  easily  trace  the  intellectual  expression 
of  the  high  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  which  the  patriotic  enthu- 
siasm had  elicited.  The  spirit  of  patriotism  has  this  pecuUar  20 
characteristic,  that  while  it  has  evoked  acts  of  heroism 
which  are  both  very  numerous  and  very  sublime,  it  has 
done  so  without  presenting  any  pros[)ect  of  personal 
immortality  as  a  reward.  Of  all  the  forms  of  human  heroism, 
it  is  probably  the  most  unselfish.  The  Spartan  and  the  25 
Roman    died   for   his   country   because   he   loved   it.'    The 

1  From  Chapter  IF,  \ol.  I,  of  '"  History  of  European  Morals,"  1869. 
The  author's  foot-notes  have  been  omitted. 

335 


336        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

martyr's  ecstasy  of  hope  had  no  place  in  his  dying  hour. 
He  gave  up  all  he  had,  he  closed  his  eyes,  as  he  believed,  for 
ever,  and  he  asked  for  no  reward  in  this  world  or  in  the  next. 
Even  the  hope  of  posthumous  fame — the  most  refined  and 
5  supersensual  of  all  that  can  be  called  reward — could  exist 
only  for  the  most  conspicuous  leaders.  It  was  examples  of 
this  nature  that  formed  the  culminations  or  ideals  of  ancient 
systems  of  virtue,  and  they  naturally  led  men  to  draw  a 
very   clear   and   deep   distinction   between   the   notions   of 

lo  interest  and  of  duty.  It  may  indeed  be  truly  said,  that 
while  the  conception  of  what  constituted  duty  was  often 
very  imperfect  in  antiquity,  the  conviction  that  duty,  as 
distinguished  from  every  modification  of  selfishness,  should 
be  the  supreme  motive  of  life,  was  more  clearly  enforced 

15  among  the  Stoics  than  in  any  later  society. 

The  reader  will  probably  have  gathered  from  the  last 
chapter  that  there  are  four  distinct  motives  which  moral 
teachers  may  propose  for  the  purpose  of  leading  men  to 
virtue.     They  may  argue  that  the  disposition  of  events  is 

20  such  that  prosperity  will  attend  a  virtuous  life,  and  adversity 
a  vicious  one — a  proposition  they  may  prove  by  pointing  to 
the  normal  course  of  affairs,  andi  by  asserting  the  existence 
of  a  special  Providence  in  behalf  of  the  good  in  the  present 
world,  and  of  rewards  and  punishments  in  the  future.     As 

25  far  as  these  latter  arguments  are  concerned,  the  efficacy 
of  such  teaching  rests  upon  the  firmness  with  which  certain 
theological  tenets  are  held,  while  the  force  of  the  first  con- 
siderations will  depend  upon  the  degree  and  manner  in  which 
society  is  organised,  for  there  are  undoubtedly  some  con- 

30  ditions  of  society  in  which  a  perfectly  upright  life  has  not 
even  a  general  tendency  to  prosperity.  The  peculiar 
circumstances  and  dispositions  of  individuals  will  also 
influence  largely  the  way  in  which  they  receive  such  teaching, 
and,  as  Cicero  observed,   "  what  one  utility  has  created, 

35  another  will  often  destroy." 

They  may  argue,  again,  that  vice  is  to  the  mind  what 
disease  is  to  the  body,  and  that  a  state  of  virtue  is  in  con- 


thp:  stoics  337 

sequence  a  state  of  health.  Just  as  bodily  health  is  desired 
for  its  own  sake,  as  being  the  absence  of  a  painful  or  at  least 
displeasing  state,  so  a  well-ordered  and  virtuous  mind  may 
be  valued  for  its  own  sake,  and  independently  of  all  the 
external  good  to  which  it  may  lead,  as  being  a  condition  of  5 
happiness;  and  a  mind  distracted  by  passion  and  vice  may 
be  avoided,  not  so  much  because  it  is  an  obstacle  in  the 
pursuit  of  prosperity,  as  because  it  is  in  itself  essentially 
painful  and  disturbing.  This  conception  of  virtue  and  vice 
as  states  of  health  or  sickness,  the  one  being  in  itself  a  good,  lo 
and  the  other  in  itself  an  evil,  was  a  fundamental  proposition 
in  the  ethics  of  Plato.  It  was  admitted,  but  only  to  a  sub- 
sidiary place,  by  the  Stoics,  and  has  passed  more  or  less 
into  all  the  succeeding  systems.  It  is  especially  favourable 
to  large  and  elevating  conceptions  of  self-culture,  for  it  15 
leads  men  to  dwell  much  less  upon  isolated  acts  of  virtue 
or  vice  than  upon  the  habitual  condition  of  mind  from  which 
they  spring. 

It  is  possible,  in  the  third  place,  to  argue  in  favour  of  virtue 
by  offering  as  a  motive  that  sense  of  pleasure  which  follows  20 
the  deUberate  performance  of  a  virtuous  act.  This  emotion 
is  a  distinct  and  isolated  gratification  following  a  distinct 
action,  and  may  therefore  be  easily  separated  from  that 
habitual  placidity  of  temper  which  results  from  the  extinc- 
tion of  vicious  and  perturbing  impulses.  It  is  this  theory  25 
which  is  implied  in  the  common  exhortations  to  enjoy  "  the 
luxury  of  doing  good,"'  and  though  especially  strong  in 
acts  of  benevolence,  in  which  case  sympathy  with  the 
happiness  created  intensifies  the  feeling,  this  pleasure  attends 
every  kind  of  virtue.  30 

These  three  motives  of  action  have  all  this  common 
characteristic,  that  they  point  as  their  ultimate  end  to  the 
happiness  of  the  agent.  The  first  seeks  that  happiness 
in  external  circumstances;  the  second  and  third  in  psycho- 
logical conditions.  There  is,  however,  a  fourth  kind  of 35 
motive  which  may  be  urged,  and  which  is  the  peculiar 
characteristic  of  the  intuitive  school  of  moralists  and  the 


338        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

stumbling-block  of  its  opponents.  It  is  asserted  that  we  are 
so  constituted  that  the  notion  of  duty  furnishes  in  itself  a 
natural  motive  of  action  of  the  highest  order,  and  wholly 
distinct  from  all  the  refinements  and  modifications  of  self- 
5  interest.  The  coactive  force  of  this  motive  is  altogether 
independent  of  surrounding  circumstances,  and  of  all  forms 
of  belief.  It  is  equally  true  for  the  man  who  believes  and 
for  the  man  who  rejects  the  Christian  faith,  for  the  beUever 
in  a  future  world  and  for  the  believer  in  the  mortality  of  the 

losoul.  It  is  not  a  question  of  happiness  or  unhappiness,  of 
reward  or  punishment,  but  of  a  generically  different  nature. 
Men  feel  that  a  certain  course  of  life  is  the  natural  end  of 
their  being,  and  they  feel  bound,  even  at  the  expense  of 
happiness,  to  pursue  it.     They  feel  that  certain  acts  are 

15  essentially  good  and  noble,  and  others  essentially  base  and 
vile,  and  this  perception  leads  them  to  pursue  the  one  and 
to  avoid  the  other,  irrespective  of  all  considerations  of 
enjoyment. 

The  school  of  philosophy  we  are  reviewing  furnishes  the 

20  most  perfect  of  all  historical  examples  of  the  power  which 
the  higher  of  these  motives  can  exercise  over  the  mind. 
The  coarser  forms  of  self-interest  were  in  stoicism  absolutely 
condemned.  It  was  one  of  the  first  principles  of  these 
philosophers   that   all    things   that   are   not   in   our   power 

25  should  be  esteemed  indifferent;  that  the  object  of  all  mental 
discipUne  should  be  to  withdraw  the  mind  from  all  the 
gifts  of  fortune,  and  that  prudence  must  in  consequence 
be  altogether  excluded  from  the  motives  of  virtue.  To 
enforce    these  principles  they  continually  dilated  upon  the 

30  vanity  of  human  things,  and  upon  the  majesty  of  the  inde- 
pendent mind,  and  they  indulged,  though  scarcely  more 
than  other  sects,  in  many  exaggerations  about  the  impassive 
tranquillity  of  the  sage.  In  the  Roman  empire  stoicism 
flourished   at   a   period   which,   beyond   almost   any   other, 

35  seemed  most  unfavourable  to  such  teaching.  There  were 
reigns  when,  in  the  emphatic  words  of  Tacitus,  "  virtue 
was  a  sentence  of  death."     In  no  period  had  brute  force 


THE  STOICS  330 

more  completely  triumphed,  in  none  was  the  thirst  for  mate- 
rial advantages  more  intense,  in  very  few  was  vice  more 
ostentatiously  glorified.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  all  these 
circumstances  the  Stoics  taught  a  philosophy  which  was 
not  a  compromise,  not  an  attempt  to  moderate  the  popular  5 
excesses,  but  which  in  its  austere  sanctity  was  the  extreme 
antithesis  of  all  that  the  prevailing  examples  and  their 
own  interests  could  dictate.  And  these  men  were  no  im- 
passioned fanatics,  fired  with  the  prospect  of  coming  glory. 
They  were  men  from  whose  motives  of  action  the  belief  lo 
in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  was  resolutely  excluded. 
In  the  scepticism  that  accompanied  the  first  introduction 
of  philosophy  into  Rome,  in  the  dissolution  of  the  old 
fables  about  Tartarus  and  the  Styx,  and  the  dissemination 
of  Epicureanism  among  the  people,  this  doctrine,  notwith-15 
standing  the  beautiful  reasonings  of  Cicero  and  the  religious 
faith  of  a  few  who  clung  like  Plutarch  to  the  mysteries  in 
which  it  was  perpetuated,  had  sunk  very  low.  An  interlocu- 
tor in  Cicero  expressed  what  was  probably  a  common  feeling, 
when  he  acknowledged  that,  with  the  writings  of  Plato  20 
before  him,  he  could  believe  and  realise  it;  but  when  he 
closed  the  book,  the  reasonings  seemed  to  lose  their  power, 
and  the  world  of  spirits  grew  pale  and  unreal.  If  Ennius 
could  elicit  the  plaudits  of  a  theatre  when  he  proclaimed  that 
the  gods  took  no  part  in  human  affairs,  Cssar  could  assert  25 
in  the  senate,  without  scandal  and  almost  without  dissent, 
that  death  was  the  end  of  all  things.  Pliny,  perhaps  the 
greatest  of  all  the  Roman  scholars,  adopting  the  sentiment 
of  all  the  school  of  Epicurus,  describes  the  belief  in  a  future 
life  as  a  form  of  madness,  a  puerile  and  a  pernicious  illusion.  30 
The  opinions  of  the  Stoics  were  wavering  and  uncertain. 
Their  first  doctrine  was  that  the  soul  of  man  has  a  future 
and  independent,  but  not  an  eternal  existence,  that  it  sur- 
vives until  the  conflagration  that  was  to  destroy  the  v.-orld 
when  all  finite  things  would  be  absorbed  in  the  all-pervading  35 
soul  of  nature.  Chryi^ip])us,  however,  restricted  to  the  best 
and  noblest  souls  this  future  exislence,  which  Cleanthes  had 


340        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

awarded  to  all,  and  among  the  Roman  Stoics  even  this  was 
greatly  doubted.  The  belief  that  the  human  soul  is  a  de- 
tached fragment  of  the  Deity,  naturally  led  to  the  belief 
that  after  death  it  would  be  reabsorbed  in  the  parent  Spirit. 
5  The  doctrine  that  there  is  no  real  good  but  virtue  deprived 
the  Stoics  of  the  argument  for  a  future  world  derived  from 
unrequited  merit  and  unpunished  crimes,  and  the  earnest- 
ness with  which  they  contended  that  a  good  man  should  act 
irrespectively  of  reward,  inclined  them,  as  it  is  said  to  have 

loinchned  some  Jewish  thinkers,  to  the  denial  of  the  existence 
of  the  reward.  Pana^tius,  the  founder  of  Roman  stoicism, 
maintained  that  the  soul  perished  with  the  body,  and  his 
opinion  was  followed  by  Epictetus  and  Cornutus.  Seneca 
contradicted    himself    on    the    subject.     Marcus    Aurehus 

15  never  rose  beyond  a  vague  and  mournful  aspiration.  Those 
who  believed  in  a  future  world  believed  it  faintly  and  uncer- 
tainly, and  even  when  the}^  accepted  it  as  a  fact,  they  shrank 
from  proposing  it  as  a  motive.  The  whole  system  of 
stoical  ethics,  which  carried  self-sacrifice  to  a  point  that  has 

20  scarcely  been  equalled,  and  exercised  an  influence  which 
has  rarely  been  surpassed,  was  evolved  without  any  assistance 
from  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  Pagan  antiquity  has 
bequeathed  us  few  nobler  treatises  of  morals  than  the 
"  De  Ofhciis  "  of  Cicero,  which  was  avowedly  nn  expansion 

25  of  a  work  of  Panffitius.  It  has  left  us  no  grander  example 
than  that  of  Epictetus,  the  sickly,  deformed  slave  of  a  master 
who  was  notorious  for  his  barbarity,  enfrancished  late  in 
life,  but  soon  driven  into  exile  by  Domitian,  who,  while 
sounding  the  very  abyss   of  human   misery,   and  looking 

30  forward  to  death  as  to  simple  decomposition,  was  yet  so 
filled  with  the  sense  of  the  Divine  presence,  that  his  life 
was  one  continued  hymn  to  Providence,  and  his  writings 
and  his  example,  which  appeared  to  his  contemporaries 
almost  the  ideal  of  human  goodness,  have  not  lost  their 

35  consoUng  power  through  all  the  ages  and  the  vicissitudes 
they  have  survived. 
There  was,  however,  another  form  of  immortality  which 


THE  STOICS  341 

exercised  a  much  greater  influence  among  the  Roman 
moralists.  The  desire  for  reputation,  and  especially  for 
posthumoiis  reputation — that  "  last  infirmity  of  noble 
minds  " — assumed  an  extraordinary  prominence  among  the 
springs  of  Roman  heroism,  and  was  also  the  origin  of  that  5 
theatrical  and  overstrained  phraseology  which  the  greatest 
of  ancient  moralists  rarely  escaped.  But  we  should  be  alto- 
gether in  error  if  we  inferred,  as  some  have  done,  that 
paganism  never  rose  to  the  conception  of  virtue  concealing 
itself  from  the  world,  and  consenting  voluntarily  to  degrada- 10 
tion.  No  characters  were  more  highly  appreciated  in  antiq- 
uity than  those  of  men  who,  through  a  sense  of  duty,  opposed 
the  strong  current  of  popular  favour;  of  men  like  Fabius, 
who  consented  for  the  sake  of  their  country  to  incur  the 
reputation  that  is  most  fatal  to  a  soldier;  of  men  like  Cato,  15 
who  remained  unmoved  among  the  scoffs,  the  insults,  and  the 
ridicule  of  an  angry  crowd.  Cicero,  expounding  the  prin- 
ciples of  stoicism,  declared  that  no  one  has  attained  to  true 
philosophy  who  has  not  learnt  that  all  vice  should  be  avoided, 
"  though  it  were  concealed  from  the  eyes  of  gods  and  men,"  20 
and  that  no  deeds  are  more  laudable  than  those  which  are 
done  without  ostentation,  and  far  from  the  sight  of  men. 
The  writings  of  the  Stoics  are  crowded  with  sentences  to 
the  same  effect.  "  Nothing  for  opinion,  all  for  conscience." 
"  He  who  wishes  his  virtue  to  be  blazed  abroad  is  not  labour-  25 
ing  for  virtue  but  for  fame."  "  No  one  is  more  virtuous 
than  the  man  who  sacrifices  the  reputation  of  a  good  man 
rather  than  sacriiice  his  conscience."  "  I  do  not  shrink 
from  praise,  but  I  refuse  to  make  it  the  end  and  term  of 
right."  "  If  you  do  anything  to  please  men,  you  have  30 
fallen  from  your  estate."  "  Even  a  bad  reputation  nobly 
earned  is  pleasing."  "  A  great  man  is  not  the  less  great 
when  he  lies  vanquished  and  prostrate  in  the  dust."  "  Never 
forget  that  it  is  possible  to  be  at  once  a  divine  man,  yet  a 
man  unknown  to  all  the  world."  "  That  which  is  beautiful  35 
is  beautiful  in  itself;  the  j^raise  of  man  adds  nothing  to  its 
quality."     Marcus   Aurclius,   following  an  example  that  is 


342        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

ascribed  to  Pythagoras,  made  it  a  special  object  of  mental 
discipline,  b}'-  continually  meditating  on  death,  and  evok- 
ing, by  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  whole  societies  that 
had  passed  away,  to  acquire  a  realised  sense  of  the  vanity  of 
S  posthumous  fame.  The  younger  Pliny  painted  faithfully 
the  ideal  of  stoicism  when  he  described  one  of  his  friends 
as  a  man  "  who  did  nothing  for  ostentation  but  all  for  con- 
science; who  sought  the  reward  of  virtue  in  itself,  and  not 
in  the  praise  of  man."     Nor  were  the  Stoics  less  emphatic 

loin  distinguishing  the  obligation  from  the  attraction  of 
virtue.  It  was  on  this  point  that  they  separated  from  the 
more  refined  Epicureans,  who  were  often  willing  to  sublimate 
to  the  highest  degree  the  kind  of  pleasure  they  proposed 
as  an  object,  provided  only  it  were  admitted  that  pleasure 

15  is  necessarily  the  ultimate  end  of  our  actions.  But  this  the 
Stoics  firmly  denied.  "  Pleasure,"  they  argued,  "  is  the 
companion,  not  the  guide,  of  our  course."  "  We  do  not 
love  virtue  because  it  gives  us  pleasure,  but  it  gives  us 
pleasure  because  we  love  it."     "  The  wise  man  will  not  sin, 

20  though  both  gods  and  men  should  overlook  the  deed,  for 
it  is  not  through  the  fear  of  punishment  or  of  shame  that  he 
abstains  from  sin.  It  is  from  the  desire  and  obligation  of 
what  is  just  and  good."  "  To  ask  to  be  paid  for  virtue 
is  as  if  the  eye  demanded  a  recompense  for  seeing,  or  the 

25  feet  for  walking."  In  doing  good,  man  "  should  be  like 
the  vine  which  has  produced  grapes,  and  asks  for  nothing 
more  after  it  has  produced  its  proper  fruit."  His  end, 
according  to  these  teachers,  is  not  to  find  peace  either  in 
life  or  in  death.     It  is  to  do  his  duty,  and  to  tell  the  truth. 

30  The  second  distinguishing  feature  of  stoicism  I  have 
noticed  was  the  complete  suppression  of  the  affections  to 
make  way  for  the  absolute  ascendency  of  reason.  There 
are  two  great  divisions  of  character  corresponding  very 
nearly  to  the  stoical  and  epicurean  temperaments  I  have 

35  described — that  in  which  the  will  predominates,  and  that 
in  which  the  desires  are  supreme.  A  good  man  of  the  first 
class  is  one  whose  will,  directed  by  a  sense  of  duty,  pursues 


THE  STOICS  343 

the  course  he  bclie\'es  to  be  right,  in  spite  of  strong  tempta- 
tions to  pursue  an  opposite  course,  arising  cither  from  his 
own  passions  and  tendencies,  or  from  the  circumstances  that 
surround  him.  A  good  man  of  the  second  class  is  one  who 
is  so  ha[){)ily  constituted  that  his  sympathies  and  desires  s 
instinctively  tend  to  virtuous  ends.  The  first  character 
is  the  only  one  to  which  we  can,  strictly  speaking,  attach 
the  idea  of  merit,  and  is  also  the  onl}'  one  which  is  capable 
of  rising  to  high  efforts  of  continuous  and  heroic  self-sacrifice; 
but  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  charm  in  the  spontaneous  lo 
action  of  the  unforced  desires  which  disciplined  virtue  can 
perhaps  never  attain.  The  man  who  is  consistently  generous 
through  a  sense  of  duty,  when  his  natural  temperament 
impels  him  to  avarice,  and  when  every  exercise  of  benevolence 
causes  him  a  pang,  deserves  in  the  very  highest  degree  our  15 
admiration;  but  he  whose  generosity  costs  him  no  effort, 
but  is  the  natural  gratification  of  his  affections,  attracts 
a  far  larger  measure  of  our  love.  Corresponding  to  these 
two  casts  of  character,  we  find  two  distinct  theories  of 
education,  the  aim  of  the  one  being  chiefly  to  strengthen  20 
the  will,  and  that  of  the  other  to  guide  the  desires.  The 
principal  examples  of  the  first  are  the  Spartan  and  stoical 
systems  of  antiquity,  and,  with  some  modifications,  the 
asceticism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  object  of  these  systems 
was  to  enable  men  to  endure  pain,  to  repress  manifest  and  25 
acknowledged  desires,  to  relinquish  enjoyments,  to  estab- 
lish an  absolute  empire  over  their  emotions.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  method  of  education  which  was  never 
more  prevalent  than  in  the  present  day,  which  exhausts 
its  efforts  in  making  virtue  attractive,  in  associating  it  with  30 
all  the  charms  of  imagination  and  of  prosperity,  and  in  thus 
insensibly  drawing  the  desires  in  the  wished  for  direction. 
As  the  first  system  is  especially  suited  to  a  disturbed  and 
military  society,  which  requires  and  elicits  strong  efforts 
of  the  will,  and  is  therefore  the  special  sjihere  of  heroic 35 
virtues,  so  the  kuter  belongs  naturally  to  a  tranquil  and 
highly  organised  ci\'ilisation,  which  is  therefore  very  favour- 


344        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

able  to  the  amiable  qualities,  and  it  is  probable  that  as 
civilisation  advances,  the  heroic  type  will,  in  consequence, 
become  more  and  more  rare,  and  a  kind  of  self-indulgent 
goodness  more  common.  The  circumstances  of  the  ancient 
5  societies  led  them  to  the  former  type,  of  which  the  Stoics 
furnished  the  extreme  expression  in  their  doctrine  that  the 
affections  are  of  the  nature  of  a  disease — a  doctrine  which 
they  justified  by  the  same  kind  of  arguments  as  those  which 
are  now  often  employed  by  metaphysicians  to  prove  that 

lolove,  anger  and  the  like,  can  only  be  ascribed  by  a  figure 
of  speech  to  the  Deity.  Perturbation,  they  contended,  is 
necessarily  imperfection,  and  none  of  its  forms  can  in  con- 
sequence be  ascribed  to  a  perfect  being.  We  have  a  clear 
intuitive  perception  that  reason  is  the  highest,  and  should 

IS  be  the  directing  power  of  an  inteUigent  being;  but  every 
act  which  is  performed  at  the  instigation  of  the  emotions 
is  withdrawn  from  the  empire  of  reason.  Hence  it  was 
inferred  that  while  the  will  should  be  educated  to  act  ha- 
bitually in  the  direction  of  virtue,  even  the  emotions  that 

20  seem  most  fitted  to  second  it  should  be  absolutely  proscribed. 
Thus  Seneca  has  elaborated  at  length  the  distinction  between 
clemency  and  pity,  the  first  being  one  of  the  highest  virtues, 
and  the  latter  a  positive  vice.  Clemency,  he  says,  is  an 
habitual    disposition    to   gentleness    in    the    application    of 

25  punishments.  It  is  that  moderation  which  remits  some- 
thing of  an  incurred  penalty;  it  is  the  opposite  of  cruelty, 
which  is  an  habitual  disposition  to  rigour.  Pity,  on  the 
other  hand,  bears  to  clemency  the  same  kind  of  relation  as 
superstition   to   religion.     It   is   the   weakness   of  a   feeble 

30 mind  that  flinches  at  the  sight  of  suffering.  .Clemency  is  an 
act  of  judgment,  but  pity  disturbs  the  judgment.  Clemency 
adjudicates  upon  the  proportion  between  suffering  and  guilt. 
Pity  contemplates  only  suffering,  and  gives  no  thoughts  to 
its  cause.     Clemency,  in  the  midst  of  its  noblest  efforts, 

35  is  perfectly  passionless;  pity  is  unreasoning  emotion.  Clem- 
ency is  an  essential  characteristic  of  the  sage;  pity  is  only 
suited   for  weak   women   and   for   diseased   minds.     "  The 


THE  STOICS  345 

sage  will  console  those  who  weep,  but  without  weeping 
with  them;  he  will  succour  the  shipwrecked,  give  hos- 
pitality to  the  proscribed,  and  alms  to  the  j)oor,  .  ,  .  restore 
the  son  to  the  mother's  tears,  save  the  captive  from  the  arena, 
and  even  bury  the  criminal;  but  in  all,  his  mind  and  his  5 
countenance  will  be  alike  untroubled.  He  will  feel  no 
pity.  He  will  succour,  he  will  do  good,  for  he  is  born  to 
assist  his  fellows,  to  labour  for  the  welfare  of  mankind,  and 
to  offer  each  one  his  part.  His  countenance  and  his  soul 
will  betray  no  emotion  as  he  looks  upon  the  withered  legs,  10 
the  tattered  rags,  the  bent  and  emaciated  frame  of  the  beggar. 
But  he  will  help  those  who  are  worthy,  and,  like  the  gods, 
his  leaning  will  be  towards  the  wretched.  ...  It  is  only 
diseased  eyes  that  grow  moist  in  beholding  tears  in  other 
eyes,  as  it  is  no  true  sympathy,  but  only  weakness  of  nerves,  15 
that  leads  some  to  laugh  always  when  others  laugh,  or  to 
yawn  when  others  yawn." 

Cicero,  in  a  sentence  which  might  be  adopted  as  the  motto 
of  stoicism,  said  that  Homer  "  attributed  human  qualities 
to  the  gods;  it  would  have  been  better  to  have  imparted 20 
divine  qualities  to  men."     The  remarkable  passage  I  have 
just  cited  serves  to  show  the  extremes  to  which  the  Stoics 
pushed   this   imitation.     And   indeed,   if   we   compare   the 
different   virtues  that  have  flourished  among  Pagans  and 
Christians,  we  invariably  find  that  the  prevailing  type  of  25 
excellence  among  the  former  is  that  in  which  the  will  and 
judgment,  and  among  the  latter,  that  in  which  the  emotions 
are  most  prominent.    Friendship  rather  than  love,  hospitality 
rather  than  charity,  magnanimity  rather  than  tenderness, 
clemency  rather  than  sympathy,  are  the  characteristics  of  30 
ancient  goodness.     The  Stoics,  who  carried  the  suppression 
of  the  emotions  farther   than  any   other  school,   laboured 
with  great  zeal  to  compensate  the  injury  thus  done  to  the 
benevolent   side   of   our   nature,   by   greatly   enlarging'  the 
sphere    of    reasoned    and    passionless    philanthropy.     They 35 
taught,  in  the  niost  emphatic  language,   the  fraternity  of 
all  men,  and  the  consequent  duty  of  each  man  consecrating 


346        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

his  life  to  the  welfare  of  others.  They  developed  this  gen- 
eral doctrine  in  a  series  of  detailed  precepts,  which,  for  the 
■  range,  depth,  and  beauty  of  their  charity,  have  never  been 
surpassed.     They  even  extended  their  compassion  to  crime,, 

S  and  adopting  the  paradox  of  Plato,  that  all  guilt  is  ignorance, 
treated  it  as  an  involuntary  disease,  and  declared  that  the 
only  legitimate  ground  of  punishment  is  prevention.  But 
however  fully  they  might  recognise  in  theory  their  prin- 
ciples with  the  widest  and  most  active  benevolence,  they 

lo  could  not  wholly  counteract  the  practical  evil  of  a  system 
which  declared  war  against  the  whole  emotional  side  of  our 
being,  and  reduced  human  virtue  to  a  kind  of  majestic 
egotism;  proposing  as  examples  such  men  as  Anaxagoras, 
who  when  told  that  his  son  had  died,   simply  observed, 

15  "  I  never  supposed  that  I  had  begotten  an  immortal,"  or  as 
Stilpo,  who  when  his  country  had  been  ruined,  his  native 
city  captured,  and  his  daughters  carried  away  as  slaves  or 
as  concubines,  boasted  that  he  had  lost  nothing,  for  the  sage 
is  independent  of  circumstances.     The  framework  or  theory 

20  of  benevolence  might  be  there,  but  the  animating  spirit 
was  absent.  Men  who  taught  that  the  husband  or  the 
father  should  look  with  perfect  indifference  on  the  death  of 
his  wife  or  his  child,  and  that  the  philosopher,  though  he 
may  shed  tears  of  pretended  sympathy  in  order  to  console 

7$  his  suffering  friend,  must  suffer  no  real  emotion  to  penetrate 
his  breast,  could  never  found  a  true  or  lasting  religion  of 
benevolence.  Men  who  refused  to  recognise  pain  and 
sickness  as  evils  were  scarcely  likely  to  be  very  eager  to 
relieve  them  in  others. 

30  In  truth,  the  Stoics,  who  taught  that  all  virtue  was  con- 
formity to  nature,  were,  in  this  respect,  eminently  false 
to  their  own  principle.  Human  nature,  as  revealed  to  us  by 
reason,  is  a  composite  thing,  a  constitution  of  many  parts 
differing  in  kind  and  dignity,  a  hierarchy  in  which  many 

35  powers  are  intended  to  co-exist,  but  in  different  positions 
of  ascendency  or  subordination.  To  make  the  higher 
part  of  our  nature  our  whole  nature  is  not  to  restore  but  to 


THE  STOICS  347 

mutilate  humanity,  and  this  mutihvtion  has  never  been 
attempted  without  producing  grave  evils.  As  philan- 
thropists, the  Stoics,  through  their  passion  for  unity,  were 
led  to  the  extirpation  of  those  emotions  which  nature  intended 
as  the  chief  springs  of  benevolence.  As  speculative  phi-  5 
losophers,  they  were  entangled  by  the  same  desire  in  a 
long  train  of  pitiable  paradoxes.  Their  famous  doctrines 
that  all  virtues  are  equal,  or,  more  correctly,  are  the  same, 
that  all  vices  are  equal,  that  nothing  is  an  evil  which  does 
not  affect  our  v.-ill,  and  that  pain  and  bereavement  are,  10 
in  consequence,  no  ills,  though  partially  explained  away 
and  frequently  disregarded  by  the  Roman  Stoics,  were  yet 
sufficiently  prominent  to  give  their  teaching  something  of  an 
unnatural  and  affected  appearance.  Prizing  only  a  single 
object,  and  developing  only  a  single  side  of  their  nature,  15 
their  minds  became  narrow  and  their  views  contracted. 
Thus,  while  the  Epicureans,  urging  men  to  study  nature 
in  order  to  banish  superstition,  endeavoured  to  correct  the 
ignorance  of  physical  science  which  was  one  of  the  chief 
im})ediments  to  the  progress  of  the  ancient  mind,  the  Stoics  20 
for  the  most  part  disdained  a  study  which  was  other  than 
the  pursuit  of  virtue.  While  the  Epicurean  poet  painted 
in  magnificent  language  the  perpetual  progress  of  mankind, 
the  Stoic  was  essentially  retrospective,  and  exhausted  his 
strength  in  vain  efforts  to  restore  the  simplicity  of  a  by-  25 
gone  age.  While,  too,  the  school  of  Zeno  produced  many 
of  the  best  and  greatest  men  who  have  ever  lived,  it  must 
be  acknowledged  that  its  records  exhibit  a  rather  unusual 
number  of  examples  of  high  professions  falsified  in  action, 
and  of  men  who,  disjilaying  in  some  forms  the  most  undoubted  30 
and  transcendent  virtue,  fell  in  others  far  below  the  average 
of  mankind.  The  elder  Cato,  who,  though  not  a  philosopher, 
was  a  model  of  philosophers,  was  conspicuous  for  his  inhu- 
manity to  his  slaves.  Brutus  was  one  of  the  most  extor- 
tionate usurers  of  his  time,  and  several  citizens  of  Salamis35 
died  of  starvation,  imprisoned  because  they  could  not  pay 
the  sum  he  demanded.     No  one  eulogised  more  eloquently 


348        WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

the  austere  simplicity  of  life  which  stoicism  advocated  than 
Sallust,  who  in  a  corrupt  age  was  notorious  for  his  rapacity. 
Seneca  himself  was  constitutionally  a  nervous  and  timid 
man,  endeavouring,  not  always  with  success,  to  support 
5  himself  by  a  sublime  philosophy.  He  guided,  under  cir- 
cumstances of  extreme  difficulty,  the  cause  of  virtue,  and 
his  death  is  one  of  the  noblest  antiquity  records;  but  his 
life  was  deeply  marked  by  the  taint  of  flattery,  and  not 
free  from  the  taint  of  avarice,  and  it  is  unhappily  certain 

lothat,  after  its  accomphshment,  he  lent  his  pen  to  conceal 
or  varnish  one  of  the  worst  crimes  of  Nero.  The  courage 
of  Lucan  failed  signally  under  torture,  and  the  flattery 
which  he  bestowed  upon  Nero,  in  his  "  Pharsalia,"  ranks 
with  the  Epigrams  of  Martial  as  probably  the  extreme  limit 

15  of  sycophancy  to  which  Roman  literature  descended. 

While,  too,  the  main  object  of  the  Stoics  was  to  popularise 
philosophy,  the  high  standard  of  self-control  they  exacted 
rendered  their  system  exceedingly  unfit  for  the  great  majority 
of  mankind,  and  for  the  ordinary  condition  of  affairs.     Life 

20  is  history,  not  poetry.  It  consists  mainly  of  httle  things, 
rarely  illumined  by  flashes  of  great  heroism,  rarely  broken 
by  great  dangers,  or  demanding  great  exertions.  A  moral 
system,  to  govern  society,  must  accomodate  itself  to  common 
characters  and  mingled  motives.     It  must  be  capable  of 

25  influencing  natures  that  can  never  rise  to  an  heroic  level. 
It  must  tincture,  modify,  and  mitigate  where  it  cannot 
eradicate  or  transform.  In  Christianity  there  are  always  a 
few  persons  seeking  by  continual  and  painful  efforts  to 
reverse  or  extinguish   the   ordinary   feelings   of   humanity, 

30  but  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  influence  of  the  religious 
principle  upon  the  mind,  though  very  real,  is  not  of  a  nature 
to  cause  any  serious  strain  or  struggle.  It  is  displayed 
in  a  certain  acquired  spontaneity  of  impulse.  It  softens  the 
character,    purifies    and    directs    the    imagination,    blends 

35  insensibily  v.ith  the  habitual  m.odes  of  thought,  and,  with- 
out re^■olutionising,  gives  a  tone  and  bias  to  all  the  forms 
of   action.     But  stoicism   was   simply   a   school   of   heroes. 


THE  STOICS  349 

It  recognised  no  gradations  of  virtue  or  vice.  It  condemned 
all  emotions,  all  spontaneity,  all  mingled  motives,  all  the 
principles,  feelings,  and  impulses  upon  which  the  virtue 
of  common  men  mainly  depends.  It  was  capable  of  acting 
only  on  moral  natures  that  were  strung  to  the  highest  5 
tension,  and  it  was  therefore  naturally  rejected  by  the 
multitude. 

The  central  conception  of  this  philosophy  of  self-control 
was  the  dignity  of  man.  Pride,  which  looks  within,  making 
man  seek  his  own  approbation,  as  distinguished  from  vanity,  10 
which  looks  without,  and  shapes  its  conduct  according  to 
the  opinions  of  others,  was  not  only  permitted  in  stoicism, 
it  was  its  leading  moral  agent.  The  sense  of  virtue,  as  I 
have  elsewhere  observed,  occupies  in  this  system  much  the 
same  place  as  the  sense  of  sin  in  Christianity.  Sin,  in  the  15 
conception  of  the  ancients,  was  simply  disease,  and  they 
deemed  it  the  part  of  a  wise  man  to  correct  it,  but  not  to 
dwell  upon  its  circumstances.  In  the  many  disquisitions 
which  Epictetus  and  others  have  left  us  concerning  the 
proper  frame  of  mind  in  which  man  should  approach  death,  20 
repentance  for  past  sin  has  absolutely  no  place,  nor  do  the 
ancients  appear  to  have  ever  realised  the  purifying  and 
spiritualising  influence  it  exercises  upon  the  character. 
And  while  the  reality  of  moral  disease  v.as  fully  recognised, 
while  an  ideal  of  lofty  and  indeed  unattainable  excellence  25 
was  continually  proposed,  no  one  doubted  the  essential 
excellence  of  human  nature,  and  very  few  doubted  the 
possibility  of  man  acquiring  by  his  own  will  a  high  degree 
of    virtue. 

The  doctrine  of  suicide  was  the  culminating  point  of 30 
Roman  stoicism.  The  proud,  self-reliant,  unbending  char- 
acter of  the  philospher,  could  only  be  sustained  when  he 
felt  that  he  had  a  sure  refuge  against  the  extreme  forms 
of  suffering  or  of  desjxiir.  Although  virtue  is  not  a  mere 
creature  of  interest,  no  great  system  has  ever  yet  flourished 35 
which  did  not  present  an  ideal  of  happiness  as  well  as  an 
ideal  of  duty.     Stoicism  taught  men  to  hi^pe  little,  but  to 


350        WILLIAM  EDWAKD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

fear  nothing.  It  did  not  array  death  in  brilliant  colours, 
as  the  path  to  positive  felicity,  but  it  endeavoured  to  divest 
it,  as  the  end  of  suffering,  of  every  terror.  Life  lost  much  of 
its  bitterness  when  men  had  found  a  refuge  from  the  storms 
5  of  fate,  a  speedy  deliverance  from  dotage  and  pain.  Death 
ceased  to  be  terrible  when  it  was  regarded  rather  as  a  remedy 
than  as  a  sentence.  Life  and  death  in  the  stoical  system  were 
attuned  to  the  same  key.  The  deification  of  human  virtue, 
the  total  absence  of  all  sense  of  sin,  the  proud  stubborn 

lowill  that  deemed  humiliation  the  worst  of  stains,  appeared 
alike  in  each.  The  type  of  its  own  kind  was  perfect.  All 
the  virtues  and  all  the  majesty  that  accompany  human 
pride,  when  developed  to  the  highest  point,  and  directed  to 
the    noblest   ends,  were  here  displayed.     All  those  which 

15  accompany   humility   and   self-abasement  were  absent. 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUMANITY » 

John  Robert  Seeley 

The  first  method  of  training  this  passion  which  Christ 
employed  \v;)s  tlie  direct  one  of  making  it  a  point  of  duty 
to  feel  it.  To  love  one's  neighbour  as  oneself  was,  he  said, 
the  first  and  greatest  Idiv.  And  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  he  re(|uires  the  passion  to  be  felt  in  such  strength  $ 
as  to  include  those  whom  we  have  most  reason  to  hate — 
our  enemies  and  those  who  maliciously  injure  us — and 
delivers  an  imperative  precept,  "  Love  your  enemies." 

It  has  been  shown  that  to  do  this  is  not,  as  might  at 
first  appear,  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible,  but  theio 
further  question  suggests  itself,  Can  it  be  done  to  order? 
Has  the  verb  to  love  really  an  imperative  mood?  Cer- 
tainly, to  say  that  we  can  love  at  pleasure,  and  by  a  mere 
effort  of  will  summon  up  a  passion  which  does  not  arise 
of  itself,  is  to  take  up  a  paradoxical  and  novel  position.  15 
Yet  if  this  position  be  really  untenable,  how  is  it  possible 
to  obey  Christ's  commands? 

The  difficulty  seems  to  admit  of  only  one  solution.  We 
are  not  commanded  to  create  by  an  effort  of  will  a  feeling 
of  love  in  ourselves  which  otherwise  would  have  had  no  20 
existence;  the  feeling  must  arise  naturally  or  it  cannot 
arise  at  all.  But  a  number  of  causes  which  are  removable 
may  interfere  to  prevent  the  feeling  from  arising  or  to 
stifle  it  as  it  arises,  and  we  are  commanded  to  remove  these 
hindrances.  It  is  natural  to  man  to  love  his  kind,  and  25 
Christ  commands  us  only  to  give  nature  play.     He  vdoes 

1  Chapter  XIV  of  "  Ecce  Homo,  a  Survey  of  the  Life  and  work  of 
Jesus  Christ,"  18O5. 

351 


352  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

not  expect  us  to  procure  for  ourselves  hearts  of  some  new 
supernatural  texture,  but  merely  the  heart  of  flesh  for  the 
heart  of  stone. 

What,  then,  are  the  causes  of  this  paralysis  of  the  heart? 
5  The  experience  of  human  life  furnishes  us  readily  with 
the  answer.  It  constantly  happens  that  one  whose  affec- 
tions were  originally  not  less  lively  than  those  of  most 
men  is  thrown  into  the  society  of  persons  destitute  of 
sympathy  or  tenderness.     In   this  society  each  person  is 

lo  either  totally  indifferent  to  his  neighbour  or  secretly  en- 
deavouring to  injure  or  overreach  him.  The  new-comer 
is  at  first  open-hearted  and  cordial;  he  presumes  every 
one  he  meets  to  be  a  friend,  and  is  disposed  to  serve  and 
expects  to  be  served  by  all  aUke.     But  his  advances  are 

15  met  by  some  with  cautious  reserve,  by  others  with  icy 
coldness,  by  others  with  h}T30critical  warmth  followed  by 
treacherous  injury,  by  others  with  open  hostility.  The 
heart  which  naturally  grew  warm  at  the  mere  sight  of  a 
human  being,  under  the  operation  of  this  new  experience 

20  slowly  becomes  paralysed.  There  seats  itself  gradually  in 
the  man's  mind  a  presumption  concerning  every  new  face 
that  it  is  the  face  of  an  enemy,  and  a  habit  of  gathering 
himself  into  an  attitude  of  self-defence  whenever  he  deals 
with  a  fellow-creature.     If  when  this  new  disposition  has 

25  grown  confirmed  and  habitual,  he  be  introduced  into  a 
society  of  an  opposite  kind  and  meet  with  people  as  friendly 
and  kind  as  he  himself  was  originally,  he  will  not  at  first 
be  able  to  believe  in  their  sincerity,  and  the  old  kindly 
affections  from  long  disuse  will  be  slow  to  rouse  themselves 

30  within  him.  Now  to  such  a  person  the  imperative  mood 
of  the  verb  to  love  may  fairly  be  used.  He  may  properly 
be  told  to  make  an  effort,  to  shake  off  the  distrust  that 
oppresses  him, — not  to  suffer  unproved  suspicions,  causeless 
jealousies,  to  stifle  by  the  mere  force  of  prejudice  and  mis- 

35  taken  opinion  the  warmth  of  feeling  natural  to  him. 

But  we  shall  have  a  closer  illustration  if  we  suppose  the 
cold-hearted  society  itself  to  be  addressed  by  a  preacher 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUiMANITY  353 

who  wishes  to  bring  them  to  a  better  mind.  He  too  may 
fairly  use  the  imperative  mood  of  the  verb  to  love.  For 
he  may  say,  "  Your  mutual  coldness  does  not  spring  from 
an  original  want  of  the  power  of  sympathy.  If  it  did, 
admonitions  would  indeed  be  useless.  But  it  springs  from  5 
a  habit  of  thought  which  you  have  formed,  a  maxim  which 
has  been  received  among  you,  that  all  men  are  devoted 
to  self-interest,  that  kindness  is  but  feebleness  and  invites 
injury.  If  }'ou  will  at  once  and  by  a  common  act  throw 
off  this  false  opinion  of  human  nature,  and  adopt  a  new  10 
plan  of  life  for  yourselves  and  new  expectations  of  each 
other,  you  will  fmd  the  old  affections  natural  to  all  of  you, 
weakened  indeed  and  chilled,  but  existing  and  capable  of 
being  revived  by  an  effort." 

Such  a  preacher  might  go  further  and  say,  "If  but  a  15 
small  minority  are  convinced  by  my  words,  yet  let  that 
minority  for  itself  abandon  the  selfish  theory,  let  it  renounce 
the  safety  which  that  theory  affords  in  dealing  with  selfish 
men,  let  it  treat  the  enemy  as  if  he  were  indeed  the  friend 
he  ought  to  be,  let  it  dare  to  forego  retaliation  and  even  20 
self-defence.  By  this  means  it  will  shame  many  into 
kindness;  by  despising  self-interest  for  itself  it  will  some- 
times make  it  seem  despicable  to  others;  by  sincerity  and 
persistency  it  will  gradually  convert  the  majority  to  a  higher 
law  of  intercourse.  25 

The  world  has  been  always  more  or  less  like  this  cold- 
hearted  society;  the  natural  kindness  and  fellow-feeling 
of  men  ha\'c  always  been  more  or  less  repressed  by  low- 
minded  maxims  and  cynicism.  But  in  the  time  of  Christ, 
and  in  the  last  decrepitude  of  ethnic  morality,  the  selfish- 30 
ness  of  human  intercourse  was  much  greater  than  the 
present  age  can  easily  understand.  That  system  of  morality, 
even  in  the  times  when  it  was  powerful  and  in  many  respects 
beneficial,  had  made  it  almost  as  much  a  duty  to  hate;  for- 
eigners as  to  love  fellow-citizens.  Plato  congratulates  the  35 
Athenians  on  having  shown  in  their  relations  to  Persia, 
beyond  all  the  other  Greeks,  "  a  pure  and  heartfelt  hatred 


354  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

of  the  foreign  nature."  ^  Instead  of  opposing,  it  had 
sanctioned  and  consecrated  the  savage  instinct  which 
leads  us  to  hate  whatever  is  strange  or  uninteUigible,  to 
distrust  those  who  live  on  the  further  side  of  a  river,  to 

S  suppose  that  those  whom  we  hear  talking  together  in  a 
foreign  tongue  must  be  plotting  some  mischief  against 
ourselves.  The  lapse  of  time  and  the  fusion  of  races  doubt- 
less diminished  this  antipathy  considerably,  but  at  the 
utmost  it  could  but  be  transformed  into  an  icy  indifference, 

lofor  no  cause  was  in  operation  to  convert  it  into  kindness. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  closeness  of  the  bond  which  united 
fellow-citizens  was  considerably  relaxed.  Common  interests 
and  common  dangers  had  drawn  it  close;  these  in  the  wide 
security  of  the  Roman  Empire  had  no  longer  a  place.     It 

15  had  depended  upon  an  imagined  blood-relationship;  fellow- 
citizens  could  now  no  longer  feel  themselves  to  be  united 
by  the  tie  of  blood.  Every  town  was  full  of  resident  aliens 
and  emancipated  slaves,  persons  between  whom  and  the 
citizens  nature  had  established  no  connection,  and  whose 

20  presence  in   the   city  had  originally  been  barely  tolerated 

from   motives   of   expediency.     The   selfishness   of   modern 

times  exists  in  defiance  of  morality,  in  ancient  times  it  was 

approved,  sheltered,  and  even  in  part  enjoined  by  morality. 

We  are   therefore   to   consider   the    ancient   world   as   a 

25  society  of  men  in  whom  natural  humanity  existed  but  had 
been,  as  it  were,  crusted  or  frosted  over.  Inveterate  feuds 
and  narrow-minded  local  jealousies,  arising  out  of  an  iso- 
lated position  or  differences  of  language  and  institutions, 
had  created  endless  divisions  between  man  and  man.     And 

30  as  the  special  virtues  of  antiquity,  patriotism  and  all  that 
it  implies,  had  been  in  a  manner  caused  and  fostered  by  these 
very  divisions,  they  were  not  regarded  as  evils  but  rather 
cherished  as  essential  to  morality.  Selfishness,  therefore, 
was  not  a  mere  abuse  or  corruption  arising  out  of  the  infirmity 

35  of  human  nature,  but  a  theory  and  almost  a  part  of  moral 
philosophy.  Humanity  was  cramped  by  a  mistaken  preju- 
1  Plato.  Alcnexcnus. — Author's  note. 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUMANITY  355 

dice,  by  a  perverse  presumption  of  the  intellect.  In  a  case 
like  this  it  was  necessary  and  proper  to  prescribe  humanity 
by  direct  authoritative  precept.  Such  a  precept  would  have 
been  powerless  to  create  the  feeling,  nor  would  it  have  done 
much  to  protect  it  from  being  overpowered  by  the  opposite  S 
passion,  but  the  opposite  passion  of  selfishness  was  at  this 
period  justified  by  authority  and  claimed  to  be  on  the  side 
of  reason  and  law.  Precept  is  fairly  matched  against 
precept,  and  what  the  law  of  love  and  the  golden  rule  did 
for  mankind  was  to  i)lace  for  the  first  time  the  love  of  man  as  lo 
man  distinctly  in  the  list  of  virtues,  to  dissipate  the  exclusive 
prejudices  of  ethnic  morality,  and  to  give  selfishness  the 
character  of  sin. 

When  a  theory  of  selfishness  is  rife  in  a  whole  community, 
it  is  a  bold  and  hazardous  step  for  a  part  of  the  community  is 
to  abandon  it.  For  in  the  society  of  selfish  people  selfish- 
ness is  simply  self-defence;  to  renounce  it  is  to  evacuate 
one's  entrenched  position,  to  surrender  at  discretion  to  the 
enemy.  If  society  is  to  disarm,  it  should  do  so  by  com- 
mon consent.  Christ,  however,  though  he  confidently  ex-  20 
pectcd  ultimately  to  gather  all  mankind  into  his  society, 
did  not  expect  to  do  so  soon.  Accordingly  he  commands 
his  followers  not  to  wait  for  this  consummation  but,  in 
spite  of  the  hazardous  nature  of  the  step,  to  disarm  at 
once.  They  are  sent  forth  "as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  25 
wolves."  Injuries  they  are  to  expect,  but  they  are  neither 
to  shun  nor  to  retaliate  them.  Harmless  they  are  to  be 
as  doves.  The  discipline  of  suffering  will  wean  them  more 
and  more  from  self,  and  make  the  channels  of  humanity 
freer  within  them;  and  sometimes  their  patience  may  shame 30 
the  spoiler;  he  may  grow  weary  of  rapacity  which  meets 
with  no  resistance,  and  be  induced  to  envy  those  who  can 
forego  without  reluctance  that  which  he  devotes  every 
thought  to  acquire.  ' 

But  we  shall  soon  be  convinced  that  Christ  could  not  35 
design  by  a  mere  edict,  however  authoritative,  to  give  this 
passion  of  humanity  strength  enough  to  make  it  a  living 


356  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

and  infallible  principle  of  morality  in  every  man,  when  we 
consider,  first,  what  an  ardent  enthusiasm  he  demanded 
from  his  followers,  and  secondly,  how  frail  and  tender  a 
germ  this  passion  naturally  is  in  human  nature.  Widely 
S  diffused  indeed  it  is,  and  seldom  entirely  eradicated;  but 
for  the  most  part,  at  least  in  the  ancient  world,  it  was 
crushed  under  a  weight  of  predominant  passions  and  inter- 
ests; it  had  seldom  power  enough  to  dictate  any  action, 
but   made   itself   felt   in   faint    misgivings   and   relentings, 

lo  which  sometimes  restrained  men  from  extremes  of  cruelty. 
Like  Enceladus  under  ^Etna,  it  lay  fettered  at  the  bottom 
of  human  nature,  now  and  then  making  the  mass  above 
it  quake  by  an  uneasy  change  of  posture.  To  make  this 
outraged   and   enslaved   passion   predominant,    to   give   it, 

15  instead  of  a  veto  rarely  used,  the  whole  power  of  government, 
to  train  it  from  a  dim  misgiving  into  a  clear  and  strong 
passion,  required  much  more  than  a  precept.  The  precept 
had  its  use;  it  could  make  men  feel  it  right  to  be  humane 
and  desire  to  be  so,  but  it  could  never  inspire  them  with  an 

20  enthusiasm  of  humanity.  From  what  source  was  this 
inspiration  to  be  derived? 

Humanity,  we  have  already  observed,  is  neither  a  love 
for  the  whole  human  race,  nor  a  love  for  each  individual 
of  it,  but  a  love  for  the  race,  or  for  the  ideal  of  man,  in 

25  each  individual.  In  other  and  less  pedantic  words,  he 
who  is  truly  humane  considers  every  human  being  as  such 
interesting  and  important,  and  without  waiting  to  criticise 
each  individual  specimen,  pays  in  advance  to  all  alike  the 
tribute  of  good  wishes  and  sympathy.     Now  this  favourable 

30  presumption  with  regard  to  human  beings  is  not  a  causeless 
prepossession,  it  is  no  idle  superstition  of  the  mind,  nor  is 
it  a  natural  instinct.  It  is  a  feeling  founded  on  the  actual 
observation  and  discovery  of  interesting  and  noble  qualities 
in    particular  human  beings,  and  it  is  strong  or  weak  in 

35  proportion  as  the  person  who  has  the  feeling  has  known 
many  or  few  noble  and  amiable  human  beings.  There  are 
men  who  have  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  live  in  the  perpetual 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUMANITY  357 

society  of  the  mean  and  the  base;  they  have  never,  except 
in  a  few  faint  glimpses,  seen  anything  glorious  or  good  in 
human  nature.  With  these  the  feeling  of  humanity  has 
a  perpetual  struggle  for  existence,  their  minds  tend  by  a 
fatal  gravitation  to  the  belief  that  the  happiness  or  misery  s 
of  such  a  paltry  race  is  wholly  unimportant;  they  may  arrive 
finally  at  a  fixed  condition,  in  which  it  may  be  said  of  them 
without  qualification,  that  "  man  delights  not  them,  nor 
woman  neither."  In  this  final  stage  they  are  men  who, 
beyond  the  routine  of  life,  should  not  be  trusted,  being  lo 
"  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils."  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  those  whose  lot  it  has  been  from  earliest 
childhood  to  see  the  fair  side  of  humanity,  who  have  been 
surrounded  with  clear  and  candid  countenances,  in  the 
changes  of  which  might  be  traced  the  working  of  passions  15 
strong  and  simple,  the  impress  of  a  firm  and  tender  nature, 
wearing  when  it  looked  abroad  the  glow  of  sympathy,  and 
when  it  looked  within  the  bloom  of  modesty.  They  have 
seen,  and  not  once  or  twice,  a  man  forget  himself;  they  have 
witnessed  devotion,  unselfish  sorrow,  unaffected  delicacy,  20 
spontaneous  charity,  ingenuous  self-reproach;  and  it  may  be 
that  on  seeing  a  human  being  surrender  for  another's  good 
not  something  but  his  uttermost  all,  they  have  dimly  sus- 
pected in  human  nature  a  glory  connecting  it  with  the 
divine.  In  these  the  passion  of  humanity  is  warm  and  25 
ready  to  become  on  occasion  a  burning  flame;  their  whole 
minds  are  elevated,  because  they  are  possessed  with  the 
dignity  of  that  nature  they  share,  and  of  the  society  in  the 
midst  of  which  they  move. 

But  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary  to  humanity  that  a 30 
man  shall  have  seen  many  men  whom  he  can  respect.  The 
most  lost  cynic  will  get  a  new  heart  by  learning  thoroughly 
to  believe  in  the  virtue  of  one  man.  Our  estimate  of  human 
nature  is  in  proportion  to  the  best  specimen  of  it  we  have 
witnessed.  This  then  it  is  which  is  wanted  to  raise  the 35 
feeling  of  humanity  into  an  enthusiasm;  when  the  precept 
of  love  has  been  given,  an  image   must  be  set  before  the 


358         JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

eyes  of  those  who  are  called  upon  to  obey  it,  an  ideal  or 
type  of  man  which  may  be  noble  and  amiable  enough  to 
raise  the  whole  race  and  make  the  meanest  member  of  it 
sacred  with  reflected  glory. 
S  Did  not  Christ  do  this?  Did  the  command  to  love  go 
forth  to  those  who  had  never  seen  a  human  being  they 
could  revere?  Could  his  followers  turn  upon  him  and  say, 
How  can  we  love  a  creature  so  degraded,  full  of  vile  wants 
and  contemptible  passions,  whose  little  life  is  most  harm- 

lolessly  spent  when  it  is  an  empty  round  of  eating  and  sleep- 
ing; a  creature  destined  for  the  grave  and  for  obUvion  when 
his  allotted  term  of  fretfulness  and  folly  has  expired?  Of 
this  race  Christ  himself  was  a  member,  and  to  this  day  is 
it  not  the  best  answer  to  all  blasphemers  of  the  species,  the 

IS  best  consolation  when  our  sense  of  its  degradation  is  keenest, 
that  a  human  brain  was  behind  his  forehead  and  a  human 
heart  beating  in  his  breast,  and  that  within  the  whole 
creation  of  God  nothing  more  elevated  or  more  attractive 
has  yet  been  found  than  he?  And  if  it  be  answered  that  there 

20  was  in  his  nature  something  exceptional  and  peculiar,  that 
humanity  must  not  be  measured  by  the  stature  of  Christ, 
let  us  remember  that  it  was  precisely  thus  that  he  wished 
it  to  be  measured,  delighting  to  call  himself  the  Son  of  Man, 
delighting  to  call  the  meanest  of  mankind  his  brothers.     If 

25  some  human  beings  are  abject  and  contemptible,  if  it  be 
incredible  to  us  that  they  can  have  any  high  dignity  or 
destiny,  do  we  regard  them  from  so  great  a  height  as  Christ? 
Are  we  likely  to  be  more  pained  by  their  faults  and  deficiencies 
than  he  was?    Is  our  standard  higher  than  his?   And  yet  he 

30  associated  by  preference  with  these  meanest  of  the  race; 
no  contempt  for  them  did  he  ever  express,  no  suspicion  that 
they  might  be  less  dear  than  the  best  and  wisest  to  the  com- 
mon Father,  no  doubt  that  they  were  naturally  capable 
of  rising  to  a  moral  elevation  like  his  own.     There  is  nothing 

35  of  which  a  man  may  be  prouder  than  of  this;  it  is  the  most 
hopeful  and  redeeming  fact  in  history;  it  is  precisely  what 
was  wanting  to  raise  the  love  of  man  as  man  to  enthusiasm. 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUMANITY  359 

An  eternal  glory  has  been  shed  upon  the  human  race  by 
the  love  Christ  bore  to  it.  And  it  was  because  the  Edict 
of  Universal  Love  went  forth  to  men  whose  hearts  were 
in  no  cynical  mood  but  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  dev^otion 
to  a  man,  that  words  which  at  any  other  time,  however  5 
grandly  they  might  sound,  would  have  been  but  words, 
penetrated  so  deeply,  and  along  with  the  law  of  love  the 
power  of  love  was  given.  Therefore  also  the  first  Christians 
were  enabled  to  dispense  with  philosophical  phrases,  and 
instead  of  saying  that  they  loved  the  ideal  of  man  in  man  10 
could  simply  say  and  feel  that  they  loved  Christ  in  every 
man. 

We  have  here  the  very  kernel  of  the  Christian  moral 
scheme.     We    have    distinctly    before    us    the    end    Christ 
proposed   to   himself,   and   the   means  he   considered  ade- 15 
quate   to   the  attainment  of  it.     His  object   was,   instead 
of  drawing  up,  after  the  example  of  previous  legislators, 
a   list   of  actions  prescribed,   allowed,   and  prohibited,   to 
give  his  disciples  a   universal   test  by  which   they  might 
discover  what  it  was  right  and  what  it  was  wrong  to  do.  20 
Now  as  the  dilHculty  of  discovering  what  is  right  arises 
commonly  from  the  prevalence  of  self-interest  in  our  minds, 
and  as  we  commonly  behave  rightly  to  anyone  for  whom 
we  feel  affection  or  sympathy,  Christ  considered  that  he 
who  could  feel  sympathy  for  all  would  behave  rightly  to  25 
all.     But  how  to  give  to  the  meagre  and  narrow  hearts  of 
men  such  enlargement?    How  to  make  them  capable  of  a 
universal   symi)athy?    Christ   believed  it  possible   to  bind 
men  to  their  kind,  but  on  one  condition — that  they  were 
first  bound  fast  to  himself.     He  stood  forth  as  the  represent- 30 
ative  of  men,  he  identified  himself  with  the  cause  and  with 
the  interests  of  all  human  beings,  he  was  destined,  as  he 
began  before  long  obscurely  to  intimate,  to  lay  down  his 
life  for  them.     Few  of  us  symi:)athise  originally  and  directly 
with  this  devotion;   few  of  us  can  perceive  in  human  nature 35 
itself  any  merit  sufficient  to  evoke  it.     But  it  is  not  so  hard 
to  love  and  \enerate  him  who  felt  it.     So  vast  a  passion  of 


360  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

love,  a  devotion  so  comprehensive,  elevated,  deliberate 
and  profound,  has  not  elsewhere  been  in  any  degree 
approached  save  by  some  of  his  imitators.  And  as  love 
provokes  love,  many  have  found  it  possible  to  conceive  for 
5  Christ  an  attachment  the  closeness  of  which  no  words  can 
describe,  a  veneration  so  possessing  and  absorbing  the  man 
within  them,  that  they  have  said,  "  I  live  no  more,  but 
Christ  lives  in  me."  Now  such  a  feeling  carries  with  it  of 
necessity   the   feeling   of   love   for   all   human   beings.     It 

lo matters  no  longer  what  quality  men  may  exhibit;  amiable 
or  unamiable,  as  the  brothers  of  Christ,  as  belonging  to 
his  sacred  and  consecrated  kind,  as  the  objects  of  his  love 
in  life  and  death,  they  must  be  dear  to  all  to  whom  he  is 
dear.     And  those  who  would  for  a  moment  know  his  heart 

IS  and  understand  his  life  must  begin  by  thinking  of  the  whole 
race  of  man,  and  of  each  member  of  the  race,  with  awful 
reverence  and  hope.  ! 

Love,  wheresoever  it  appears,  is  in  its  measure  a  law- 
making power.     "  Love  is  duliftd  in  thought  and  deed." 

20  And  as  the  lover  of  his  country  is  free  from  the  temptation 
to  treason,  so  is  he  who  loves  Christ  secure  from  the  tempta- 
tion to  injure  any  human  being,  whether  it  be  himself  or 
another.  He  is  indeed  much  more  than  this.  He  is  bound 
and  he  is  eager  to  benefit  and  bless  to  the  utmost  of  his 

25  power  all  that  bear  his  Master's  nature,  and  that  not  merely 
with  the  good  gifts  of  the  earth,  but  with  whatever  cherishes 
and  trains  best  the  Christ  within  them.  But  for  the  present 
we  are  concerned  merely  with  the  power  of  this  passion 
to  lift  the  man  out  of  sin.     The  injuries  he  committed  Hghtly 

30  when  he  regarded  his  fellow-creatures  simply  as  animals 
who  added  to  the  fierceness  of  the  brute  an  ingenuity  and 
forethought  that  made  them  doubly  noxious,  become  horrible 
sacrilege  when  he  sees  in  them  no  longer  the  animal  but  the 
Christ.     And  that  other  class  of  crimes  which  belongs  more 

35  especially  to  ages  of  civilisation,  and  arises  out  of  a  cynical 
contempt  for  the  species,  is  rendered  equally  impossible 
to  the  man  who  hears  with  reverence  the  announcement, 


THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  HUMANITY  3G1 

"  The  good  deeds  you  did  to  the  least  of  these  my  brethren 
you  did  to  mc." 

There  are  two  objections  which  may  suggest  themselves 
at  this  point,  the  one  to  intellectual,  the  other  to  practical 
men.  The  intellectual  man  may  say,  "  To  discover  what  5 
it  is  right  to  do  in  any  given  case  is  not  the  province  of 
any  feeling  or  passion  however  subhme,  but  requires  the 
application  of  the  same  intellectual  power  which  solves 
mathematical  problems.  The  common  acts  of  Hfe  may 
no  doubt  be  performed  correctly  by  unintellectual  people,  10 
but  this  is  because  these  constantly  recurring  problems 
have  been  solved  long  ago  by  clever  people,  and  the  vulgar 
are  now  in  possession  of  the  results.  Whenever  a  new  com- 
bination occurs  it  is  a  matter  for  casuists;  the  best  inten- 
tions will  avail  little;  there  is  doubtless  a  great  difference  15 
between  a  good  man  and  a  bad  one;  the  one  will  do  what 
is  right  when  he  knows  it,  and  the  other  will  not;  but  in 
respect  for  the  power  of  ascertaining  what  it  is  right  to  do, 
supposing  their  knowledge  of  casuistry  to  be  equal,  they  are 
on  a  par.  Goodness  or  the  passion  of  humanity,  or  Chris-  20 
tian  love,  may  be  a  motive  inducing  men  to  keep  the  law, 
but  it  has  no  right  to  be  called  the  law-making  power.  And 
what  has  Christianity  added  to  our  theoretic  knowledge 
of  morality?  It  may  have  made  men  practically  more  moral, 
but  has  it  added  anything  to  Aristotle's  Ethics?"  25 

Certainly  Christianity  has  no  ambition  to  invade  the 
provinces  of  the  moralist  or  the  casuist.  But  the  difficulties 
which  beset  the  discovery  of  the  right  moral  course  are  of 
two  kinds.  There  are  the  difficulties  which  arise,  from  the 
blinding  and  confusing  effect  of  selfish  passions,  and  which  30 
obscure  from  the  view  the  end  which  should  be  aimed  at 
in  action;  when  these  have  been  overcome  there  arises  a 
new  set  of  difficulties  concerning  the  means  by  which  the  end 
should  be  attained.  In  dealing  with  your  neighbour  ^  the 
first  thing  to  be  understood  is  that  his  interest  is  to  be  con- 35 
sidered  as  well  as  your  own;  but  when  this  has  been  settled, 
it  remains  to  be  considered  what  his  interest  is.     The  latter 


362  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

class  of  difficulties  requires  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  intellectual 
or  calculating  faculty.  The  former  class  can  only  be  dealt 
with  by  the  moral  force  of  sympathy.  Now  it  is  true  that 
the  right  action  will  not  be  performed  without  the  operation 

S  of  both  these  agencies.  But  the  moral  agency  is  the  dom- 
inant one  throughout;  it  is  that  without  which  the  very 
conception  of  law  is  impossible;  it  overcomes  those  difficulties 
which  in  the  vast  majority  of  practical  cases  are  the  most 
serious.     The  calculating  casuistical  faculty  is,  as  it  were, 

loin  its  employ,  and  it  is  no  more  improper  to  call  it  the  law- 
making power,  although  it  does  not  ultimately  decide 
what  action  is  to  be  performed,  than  to  say  that  a  house 
was  built  by  one  who  did  not  with  his  own  hands  lay  the 
bricks  and  spread  the  mortar. 

15  The  objection  which  practical  men  take  is  a  very  important 
one,  as  the  criticisms  of  such  men  always  are,  being  founded 
commonly  upon  large  observation  and  not  perverted  by 
theory.  They  say  that  the  love  of  Christ  does  not  in  practice 
produce  the  nobleness  and  largeness  of  character  which  has 

20 been  represented  as  its  proper  and  natural  result;  that 
instead  of  inspiring  those  who  feel  it  with  reverence  and 
hope  for  their  kind,  it  makes  them  exceedingly  narrow  in 
their  sympathies,  disposed  to  deny  and  explain  away  even 
the  most  manifest  virtues  displayed  by  men,  and  to  despair 

25  of  the  future  destiny  of  the  great  majority  of  their  fellow- 
creatures;  that  instead  of  binding  them  to  their  kind,  it 
divides  them  from  it  by  a  gulf  which  they  themselves  pro- 
claim to  be  impassable  and  eternal,  and  unites  them  only 
in  a  gloomy  conspiracy  of  misanthropy  with   each  other; 

30  that  it  is  indeed  at  law-making  power,  but  that  the  laws  it 
makes  are  little-minded  and  vexatious  prohibitions  of  things 
innocent,  demoralising  restraints  upon  the  freedom  of  joy 
and  the  healthy  instincts  of  nature ;  that  it  favours  hyprocrisy, 
moroseness,  and  sometimes  lunacy;    that  the  only  vice  it 

35  has  power  to  check  is  thoughtlessness,  and  its  only  benelicial 
effect  is  that  of  forcing  into  activity,  though  not  always  into 
healthy  activity,  the  faculty  of  serious  reflection. 


THE  ENTHUSIASM   OF  HUMANITY  363 

This  may  be  a  just  picture  of  a  large  class  of  religious 
men,  but  it  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  that  such 
effects  should  be  produced  by  a  pure  personal  devotion 
to  Christ.  We  are  to  remember  that  nothing  has  been 
subjected  to  such  multiform  and  grotesque  perversion  as  S 
Christianity.  Certainly  the  direct  love  of  Christ,  as  it  was 
felt  by  its  first  followers,  is  a  rare  thing  among  modern 
Christians.  His  character  has  been  so  much  obscured  by 
scholasticism,  as  to  have  lost  in  a  great  measure  its  attractive 
power.  The  prevalent  feeling  towards  him  now  among  lo 
religious  men  is  an  awful  fear  of  his  supernatural  great- 
ness, and  a  disposition  to  obey  his  commands  arising  partly 
from  dread  of  future  punishment  and  hope  of  reward,  and 
partly  from  a  nobler  feeling  of  loyalty,  which,  however,  is 
inspired  rather  by  his  office  than  his  person.  Beyond  15 
this  we  may  discern  in  them  an  uneasy  conviction  that  he 
requires  a  more  personal  devotion,  which  leads  to  spasmodic 
efforts  to  kindle  the  feeling  by  means  of  violent  raptures 
of  panegyric  and  by  repeating  over  and  getting  by  rote  the 
ardent  expressions  of  those  who  really  had  it.  That  is  20 
wanting  for  the  most  part  which  Christ  held  to  be  all  in  all, 
spontaneous  warmth,  free  and  generous  devotion.  That 
the  fruits  of  a  Christianity  so  hollow  should  be  poor  and 
sickly  is  not  surprising. 

But  that  Christ's  method,  when  rightly  applied,  is  really  25 
of  mighty  force  may  be  shown  by  an  argument  which  the 
severest  censor  of  Christians  will  hardly  refuse  to  admit. 
Compare  the  ancient  with  the  modern  world:    "  Look  on 
this  picture  and  on  that."     One  broad  distinction  in   the 
characters   of   men   forces  itself  into  prominence.     Among  30 
all  the  men  of  the  ancient  heathen  world  there  were  scarcely 
one  or  two  to  whom  we  might  venture  to  apply  the  epithet 
"  holy."     In  other  words,  there  were  not  more  than  one  or 
two,   if  any,   who  besides   being  virtuous  in   their  actions 
were  possessed  with  an  unaffected  enthusiasm  of  goodness,  3,5 
and  besides  abstaining  from  vice  regarded  even  a  vicious 
thought  with  horror.     Probably  no  one  will  deny  that  in 


364  JOHN  ROBERT  SEELEY 

Christian  countries  this  higher-toned  goodness,  which  we 
call  holiness,  has  existed.  Few  will  maintain  that  it  has 
been  exceedingly  rare.  Perhaps  the  truth  is,  that  there 
has  scarcely  been  a  town  in  any  Christian  country  since  the 
5  time  of  Christ  where  a  century  has  passed  without  exhibit- 
ing a  character  of  such  elevation  that  his  mere  presence  has 
shamed  the  bad  and  made  the  good  better,  and  has  been 
felt  at  times  Hke  the  presence  of  God  Himself.  And  if  this 
be  so,  has  Christ  failed?  or  can  Christianity  die? 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  i 

JOSIAII  ROYCE 

Upon  an  occasion  like  this,  when  the  children,  the  ser- 
vants, and  the  friends  of  this  institution   meet   for  their 
annual  festival,  there  is  one  word  that  best  expresses  the 
spirit  of  the  occasion.     It  is  the  word  "  loyalty," — loyalty 
to  your  College,  to  its  ideals,  to  its  life,  and  to  the  unity  and  s 
effectiveness   of   this   life.     And   amongst   the   ideals   that 
inspire  the  life  of  your  College,  and  make  that  life  eflfective 
and  united,  there  is  one  which  is  prominent  in  all  your  minds, 
whatever  your  special  studies,  your  practical  aims,  or  your 
hopes.     It  is  the  ideal  of  furthering,  in  all  your  minds,  what  lo 
we  may  call  insight, — the  ideal  of  learning  to  see  life  as  it  is, 
to  know  the  world  as  we  men  need  to  know  it,  and  to  guide 
our  purposes  as  we  ought  to  guide  them.      It  is  also  the 
ideal  of  teaching  to  others  the  art  of  just  such  insight, 
i:.  These  two  words,  then,  "  loyalty  "  and  "  insight,"  name,  15 
one  of  them,  the  spirit  in  which,  upon  such  occasions  as  this, 
we  all  meet ;  the  other,  the  ideal  that  determines  the  studies 
and  the  researches  of  any  modern  institution  of  learning. 
Upon  each  day  of  its  year  of  work  your  College  says  to  its 
children  and  to  its  servants  and  to  its  community:    "  Let  us  20 
know,   let  us  see,  let   us  comprehend,  let  us  guide  life  by 
wisdom,  and  in  turn  let  us  discover  new  wisdom  for  the  sake 
of  winning  new  life."     But  upon  a  day  like  the  present  one, 
the  work  of  the  year  being  laid  aside,  your  College  asks  and 
receives    your    united  expression  of  loyalty  to  its  cause.  25 

'  Commencement  address  delivered  at  Simmons  College,  Boston. 
Published  in  ''William  James  and  Other  Essays,"  copyright,  191 1. 
Printed  here  by  permission  of  The  Macmillan  Company. 

365 


366  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

Perhaps  some  of  you  may  feel  that  for  just  this  moment 
you  have  left  behind,  at  least  temporarily,  the  task  of 
winning  insight.  You  enjoy,  for  the  hour,  the  fruits  of 
toil.     Study  and  research  cease,  you  may  say,  for  to-day, 

S  while  the  spirit  of  loyalty  finds  its  own  free  expression  and 
takes  content  in  its  holiday. 

I  agree  that  the  holidays  and  the  working  days  have  a 
different  place  in  our  lives.  But  it  is  my  purpose  in  this 
address  to  say  something  about  the  connections  between  the 

lo  spirit  which  rules  this  occasion — the  spirit  of  loyalty — and 
the  ideal  by  which  the  year's  work  has  to  be  guided, — the 
ideal  of  furthering  true  insight.  The  loyalty  that  now  fills 
your  minds  is  merely  one  expression  of  a  certain  spirit  which 
ought  to  pervade  all  our  lives — not  only  in  our  studies, 

15  but  in  our  homes,  in  our  offices,  in  our  political  and  civic 
life — not  merely  upon  holidays,  or  upon  other  great  occasions, 
but  upon  our  working  days;  and  most  of  all  when  our  tasks 
seem  commonplace  and  hea\'y.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  insight  which  you  seek  to  get  whenever,  in  the  academic 

20  world,  you  work  in  the  laboratory  or  in  the  field,  in  the  library 
or  in  the  classroom  or  alone  in  your  study,  the  insight  that 
you  try  both  to  embody  in  your  practical  life  and  to  enrich 
through  your  researches, — just  this  insight,  I  say,  is  best 
to  be  furthered  by  a  right  cultivation  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty. 

25  I  suppose  that  when  I  utter  these  words,  you  will  easily 
give  to  them  a  certain  general  assent.  But  I  want  to  devote 
this  address  to  making  just  such  words  mean  more  to  you 
than  at  first  they  may  appear  to  mean. 

First,  then,  let  me  tell  you  what  I  myself  mean  by  the 

30 term  "loyalty."  Then  let  me  deal  with  my  principal 
thesis,  which  is  that  the  true  spirit  of  loyalty  is  not  merely 
a  proper  accompaniment  of  all  serious  work,  but  is  an  espe- 
cially important  source  of  a  very  deep  insight  into  the  mean- 
ing of  life,  and,  as  I  personally  believe,  into  the  nature  of 

35  the  whole  universe. 

Three  sorts  of  persons,  I  have  noticed,  are  fond  of  using 
the  term  "  loyalty."    These  are  quite  different  types  of 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  367 

persons;  or,  in  any  case,  they  use  the  word  upon  very  dif- 
ferent occasions.  But  these  very  differences  are  to  my 
mind  important.  The  first  type  of  those  who  love  to  use 
the  term  "  loyalty  "  consists  of  those  who  employ  it  to 
express  a  certain  glow  of  enthusiastic  devotion,  the  type  5 
of  the  lovers,  of  the  students  when  the  athletic  contests 
are  near,  of  the  partisans  in  the  heat  of  a  political  contest, 
or  of  the  friends  of  an  institution  upon  a  day  like  this.  To 
such  persons,  or  at  least  at  such  moments,  loyalty  is  con- 
ceived as  something  brilliantly  emotional,  as  a  passion  of  10 
devotion.  The  second  class  of  those  who  are  fond  of  the 
word  "  loyalty  "  are  the  warriors  and  their  admirers.  To 
such  persons  loyalty  means  a  willingness  to  do  dangerous 
service,  to  sacrifice  hfe,  to  toil  long  and  hard  for  the  flag 
that  one  follows.  But  for  a  third  t>7)e  of  those  who  employ  15 
the  word,  loyalty  especially  means  steady,  often  unobtrusive, 
fidelity  to  more  or  less  formal  obligations,  such  as  the  business 
world  and  the  workshop  impose  upon  us.  Such  persons 
think  of  loyalty  as,  first  of  all,  faithfulness  in  obeying  the 
law  of  the  land,  or  in  executing  the  plans  of  one's  official  20 
superiors,  or  in  serving  one's  employer  or  one's  client  or  one's 
chief,  or  one's  fraternity  or  other  social  union.  In  this 
sense  the  loyal  servant  may  be  obscure  and  unemotional. 
But  he  is  trustworthy.  Now,  a  word  which  thus  so  forcibly 
appeals  to  the  lovers  who  want  to  express  their  passionate  25 
devotion,  and  also  to  the  soldiers  who  want  to  name  that 
obstinate  following  of  the  flag  which  makes  victory  possible; 
a  word  which  business  men  also  sometimes  use  to  characterize 
the  quietly  and  industriously  faithful  employee  who  obeys 
orders,  who  betrays  no  secrets,  and  who  regards  the  firm's  30 
interest  as  his  own; — well,  such  a  word,  I  think,  is  not  as 
much  ambiguous  as  deep  in  its  meaning.  For,  after  all, 
loyal  emotions,  loyal  sacrifice  of  life,  loyal  steadiness  in 
obscure  service,  are  but  \arious  symptoms  of  a  certain 
spirit  which  lies  beneath  all  its  various  expressions.  This  35 
spirit  is  a  well-known  one.  All  the  higher  life  of  society 
depends  upon  it.     It  may  manifest  itself  as  enthusiasm  upon 


368  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

an  occasion  like  this,  or  as  contempt  for  death  upon  the  battle 
field,  or  as  quiet  service  when  the  toil  of  life  is  grim,  or  as  the 
cool  fidelity  that  pursues  the  daily  routine  of  office  or  of 
workshop  or  of  kitchen  with  a  steady  persistence  and  with  a 
S  simple  acceptance  of  traditional  duties  or  of  the  day's  toil. 
But  the  spirit  thus  manifested  is  not  exhausted  by  any  of 
its  symptoms.  The  appearances  of  loyalty  are  manifold. 
Its  meaning  is  one.  And  I  myself  venture  to  state  what 
the  true  spirit  of  loyalty  is  by  defining  the  term  thus:   By 

lo  loyalty  I  mean  the  thorough-going,  the  voluntary,  and  the 
practical  devotion  of  a  self  to  a  cause.  And  by  a  cause  I 
mean  something  of  the  nature  that  the  true  lover  has  in 
mind  when  he  is  wisely  devoted  to  his  love;  that  the  faith- 
ful member  of  a  family  serves  when  the  family  itself  is  the 

IS  cause  dear  to  him;  that  the  member  of  a  fraternity,  or  the 
child  of  a  college,  or  the  devoted  professional  man,  or  the 
patriot,  or  the  martyr,  or  the  faithful  workman  conceives 
when  he  thinks  of  that  to  which  he  gives  his  life.  As  all 
these  illustrations  suggest,  the  cause  to  which  one  can  be 

20  loyal  is  never  a  mere  collection  of  individuals;  nor  is  it  ever 
a  mere  abstract  principle.  This  cause,  whether  in  the  church 
or  the  army  or  the  workshop,  in  the  home  or  in  the  friendship, 
is  some  sort  of  unity  whereby  many  persons  are  joined  in  one 
common  life.     The  cause  to  which  a  loyal  man  is  devoted 

25  is  of  the  nature  of  an  institution,  or  of  a  home  fife,  or  of  a 
fraternity,  wherein  two  or  more  persons  aim  to  become  one ; 
or  of  a  religion,  wherein  the  unity  of  the  spirit  is  sought 
through  the  communion  of  the  faithful.  Loyalty  respects 
individuals,  but  aims  to  bring  them  together  into  one  com- 

30  mon  fife.  Its  command  to  the  loyal  is:  "  Be  '  one  undivided 
soul  of  many  a  soul  '  ".  It  recognizes  that,  when  apart, 
individuals  fail;  but  that  when  they  try  to  unite  their  lives 
into  one  common  higher  selfhood,  to  live  as  if  they  were 
the  expressions,  the  instruments,  the  organs  of  one  ideally 

35  beautiful  social  group,  they  win  the  only  possible  fulfillment 
of  the  meaning  of  human  existence.  Through  loyalty  to 
such  a  cause,  through  devotion  to  an  ideally  united  social 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  369 

group,  and  only  through  such  loyalty,  can  the  problems  of 
human  personality  be  solved.  By  nature,  and  apart  from 
some  cause  to  which  we  are  loyal,  each  of  us  is  but  a  mass  of 
caprices,  a  chaos  of  distracting  passions,  a  longing  for  hap- 
piness that  is  never  fulfilled,  a  seeking  for  success  which  5 
never  attains  its  goal.  Meanwhile,  no  merely  customary 
morality  ever  adequately  guides  our  lives.  Mere  social 
authority  never  meets  our  needs.  But  a  cause,  some  unity 
of  many  lives  in  one,  some  call  upon  the  individual  to  give 
himself  over  to  the  service  of  an  ideahzed  community — 10 
this  gives  sense  to  life.  This,  when  we  feel  its  presence,  as 
we  do  upon  this  occasion,  we  love,  as  the  lovers  love  the 
common  life  of  friendship  that  is  to  make  them  one,  or  as 
the  mothers  delight  in  the  life  that  is  to  unite  themselves 
and  their  children  in  the  family,  or  as  the  devout  feel  that  15 
through  their  communion  in  the  Hfe  of  their  church  they 
become  one  with  the  Divine  Spirit.  For  such  a  cause  we 
can  make  sacrifices,  such  as  the  soldier  makes  in  following 
the  flag.  For  what  is  the  fortune  of  any  detached  self 
as  compared  with  the  one  cause  of  the  whole  country?  20 
And  just  such  a  voluntary  devotion  to  a  cause  can  ennoble 
the  routine  of  the  humblest  daily  business,  in  the  office,  in 
the  household,  in  the  school,  at  the  desk,  or  in  the  market 
place,  if  one  only  finds  the  cause  that  can  hold  his  devotion — 
be  this  cause  his  business  firm  or  his  profession  or  his  house-  25 
hold  or  his  country  or  his  church,  or  all  these  at  once.  For 
all  these  causes  have  their  value  in  this:  that  through  the 
business  firm,  or  the  household,  or  the  profession,  or  the 
spiritual  community,  the  hves  of  many  human  selves  are 
v;oven  into  one,  so  that  our  fortunes  and  interests  are  no  30 
longer  conceived  as  detached  and  private,  but  as  a  giving  of 
ourselves  in  order  that  the  social  group  to  which  we  are 
devoted  should  live  its  own  united  Ufe. 

With  this  bare  indication  of  what  I  mean  by  loyalty,  I, may 
now  say  that  of  late  years  I  have  attempted  to  show  in  detail,  35 
in  various  discussions  of  our  topic,  that  the  spirit  of  loyalty, 
rightly   understood,   and   practically  applied,   furnishes  an 


370  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

adequate  solution  for  all  the  problems  of  the  moral  life. 
The  whole  moral  law  can  be  summed  up  in  the  two  command- 
ments: first,  Be  loyal;  and  secondly,  So  choose,  so  serve, 
and  so  unify  the  life  causes  to  which  you  yourself  are  loyal 
5  that,  through  your  choice,  through  your  service,  through 
your  example,  and  through  your  dealings  with  all  men,  you 
may,  as  far  as  in  you  lies,  help  other  people  to  be  loyal  to 
their  own  causes;  may  avoid  cheating  them  of  their  oppor- 
tunities for  loyalty;   may  inspire  them  with  their  own  best 

lotype  of  loyalty,  and  may  so  best  serve  the  one  great  cause 
of  the  spread  of  loyalty  among  mankind.  Or,  if  I  may 
borrow  and  adapt  for  a  worthy  end  Lincoln's  immortal 
words,  the  moral  law  is  this:  Let  us  so  live,  so  love,  and  so 
serve,  that  loyalty  "  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 

TS  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth,"  but  shall  prosper 
and  abound. 

The  scheme  of  Hfe  thus  suggested  is,  I  believe,  adequate. 
I  next  want  to  tell  what  bearing  the  spirit  of  loyalty  has 
upon  insight. 

20  The  insight  that  all  of  us  most  need  and  desire  is  an  insight, 
first,  into  the  business  of  Ufe  itself,  and  next  into  the  nature 
and  meaning  of  the  real  world  in  which  we  live.  Our  fore- 
fathers used  to  center  all  their  views  of  life  and  of  the  world 
about  their  religion.     Many  of  the  leading  minds  of  to-day 

25  center  their  modern  insight  about  the  results  of  science. 
In  consequence,  what  I  may  call  the  general  problems  of 
insight,  and  the  views  of  life  and  of  the  world  which  most  of 
us  get  from  our  studies,  have  come  of  late  to  appear  very 
different   from  the  views  and  the  problems  which  our  own 

30  leading  countrymen  a  century  ago  regarded  as  most  important. 
The  result  is  that  the  great  problem  of  the  philosophy  of 
life  to-day  may  be  defmed  as  the  effort  to  see  whether,  and 
how,  you  can  chng  to  a  genuinely  ideal  and  spiritual 
interpretation  of  your  own  nature  and  of  your  duty,  while 

35  abandoning  superstition,  and  while  keeping  in  close  touch 

with  the  results  of  modern  knowledge  about  man  and  nature. 

Let  me  briefly  indicate  what  I  mean  by  this  problem  of  a 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  371 

modern  philosophy  of  Hfc.  From  the  modern  point  of  view 
great  stress  has  been  hiid  upon  the  fact  that  man,  as  we  know 
man,  appears  to  be  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  natural  world. 
Modern  knowledge  makes  these  laws  appear  very  far-reach- 
ing, very  rigid,  and  very  much  of  the  type  that  we  call  me-  5 
chanical.  We  have,  therefore,  most  of  us,  learned  not  to 
expect  miraculous  interferences  with  the  course  of  nature  as 
aids  in  oui'  human  conflict  with  destiny.  We  have  been 
taught  to  regard  ourselves  as  the  products  of  a  long  process 
of  natural  evolution.  We  have  come  to  think  that  man's  10 
control  over  nature  has  to  take  the  general  form  which  our 
industrial  arts  illustrate,  and  which  our  recent  contests  with 
disease,  such  as  the  wars  with  tuberculosis  and  with  yellow 
fever,  exemplify.  Man,  we  have  been  led  to  say,  wins  his 
way  only  by  studying  nature  and  by  applying  his  carefully  15 
won  empirical  knowledge  to  the  guidance  of  his  arts.  The 
business  of  life — so  we  have  been  moved  to  assert — must 
therefore  be  guided  simply  by  an  union  of  plain  common 
sense  with  the  scientific  study  of  nature.  The  real  world, 
we  have  been  disposed  to  say,  is,  on  the  whole,  so  far  as  we  20 
can  know  it,  a  mechanism.  Therefore  the  best  ideal  of  life 
involves  simi:)ly  the  more  or  less  complete  control  of  this 
mechanism  for  useful  and  humane  ends.  Such,  I  say,  is 
one  very  commonly  accepted  result  to  which  modern  knowl- 
edge seems  to  have  led  men.  The  practical  view  of  life  and  25 
of  its  business  which  expresses  this  result  has  been,  for  many 
of  us,  twofold.  First,  we  have  been  led  to  this  well-known 
precept:  If  you  want  to  live  wisely,  you  must,  at  all  events, 
avoid  superstition.  That  is,  you  must  not  try  to  guide  human 
Hfe  by  deahng  with  such  supernatural  powers,  good  and  evil,  30 
as  the  mythologies  of  the  past  used  to  view  as  the  con- 
trolling forces  of  human  destiny.  You  must  take  natural 
laws  as  you  find  them.  You  must  believe  about  the  real 
world  simply  what  you  can  confirm  by  the  verdict  of  human 
experience.  You  must  juit  no  false  hopes  either  in  magic 35 
arts  or  in  useless  appeals  to  the  gods.  You  must,  for  instance, 
fight  tuberculosis  not  by  prayer,  but  by  knowing  the  con- 


372  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

ditions  that  produce  it  and  the  natural  processes  that  tend 
to  destroy  its  germs.  And  so,  in  general,  in  order  to  live 
well  and  wisely  you  must  be  a  naturalist  and  not  a  super- 
naturalist.  Or  in  any  case  you  must  conform  your  common 
S  sense  not  to  the  imagination  that  in  the  past  peopled  the 
dream  world  of  humanity  with  good  and  evil  spirits,  but  to 
the  carefully  won  insight  that  has  shown  us  ♦:hat  our  world 
is  one  where  natural  law  reigns  unyielding,  defying  equally 
our  magic  arts  and  our  prayerful   desires  for  divine  aid. 

loBut  secondly,  side  by  side  with  this  decidedly  positive 
advice,  many  of  us  have  been  brought  to  accept  a  practical 
attitude  towards  the  world  which  has  seemed  to  us  negative 
and  discouraging.  This  second  attitude  may  be  expressed 
in  the  sad  precept:  Hope  not  to  find  this  world  in  any  univer- 

15  sal  sense  a  world  of  ideal  values.  Nature  is  indifferent  to 
values.  Values  are  human,  and  merely  human.  Man  can 
indeed  give  to  his  own  Hfe  much  of  what  he  calls  value, 
if  he  uses  his  natural  knowledge  for  human  ends.  But  when 
he  sets  out  upon  this  task,  he  ought  to  know  that,  however 

20  sweet  and  ideal  human  companionship  may  be  as  it  exists 
among  men,  humanity  as  a  whole  must  fight  its  battle  with 
nature  and  with  the  universe  substantially  alone,  com- 
fortless except  for  the  comforts  that  it  wins  precisely  as  it 
builds  its  houses;    namely,   by   using   the  mechanisms  of 

25  nature  for  its  own  purposes.  The  world  happens,  indeed, 
to  give  man  some  power  to  control  natural  conditions.  But 
even  this  power  is  due  to  the  very  fact  that  man  also  is  one 
of  nature's  products, — a  product  possessing  a  certain  stabil- 
ity, a  certain  natural  plasticity  and  docility,  a  limited  range 

30  of  natural  initiative.  As  a  rock  may  deflect  a  stream,  so 
man,  himself  a  natural  mechanism,  may  turn  the  stream  of 
nature's  energies  into  paths  that  are  temporarily  useful  for 
human  purposes.  But  from  the  modern  point  of  view  the 
ancient  plaint  of  the  Book  of  Job  remains  true,  both  for  the 

35  rock  and  for  the  man: 

"  The  waters  wear  away  stones, 
And  the  hope  of  frail  man  thou  destroyest." 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  373 

In  the  end,  our  relations  to  the  universe  thus  seem  to 
remain  relations  to  an  essentially  foreign  power,  which  cares 
for  our  ideals  as  the  stormy  sea  cares  for  the  boat,  and  as  the 
bacteria  care  for  the  human  organism  upon  which  they  prey. 
If  we  ourselves,  as  products  of  nature,  are  sufficiently  strong  s 
mechanisms,  we  may  be  able  to  win,  while  life  lasts,  many 
ideal  goods.  Jkit  just  so,  if  the  boat  is  well  enough  built, 
it  may  weather  one  or  another  passing  storm.  If  the  body 
is  well  knit,  it  may  long  remain  immune  to  disease.  Yet 
in  the  end  the  boat  and  the  human  body  fail.  And  in  noio 
case,  so  this  view  asserts,  does  the  real  world  essentially 
care  for  or  help  or  encourage  our  ideals.  Our  ideals  are  as 
foreign  to  the  real  natural  world  as  the  interests  of  the  ship's 
company  are  to  the  ocean  that  may  tolerate,  but  also  may 
drown  them.  Be  free  from  superstition,  then;  and  next  15 
avoid  false  hoi)es.  Such  are  the  two  theses  that  seem  to 
embody  for  many  minds  the  essentally  modern  view  of  things 
and  the  essential  result  for  the  philosophy  of  life  of  what  we 
have  now  learned. 

But  hereupon  the  question  arises  whether  this  is  indeed  20 
the  last  word  of  insight;    whether  this  outcome  of  modern 
knowledge  does  indeed  tell  the  whole  story  of  our  relations 
to  the  real  world.     That  this  modern  view  has  its  own  share 
of  deeper  truth  we  all  recognize.     But  is  this  the  whole 
truth?   Have  we  no  access  whatever  to  any  other  aspect  of  25 
reaUty  than  the  one  which  this  naturalistic  view  emphasizes? 
And  again,  the  question  still  arises:    Is  there  any  place  left 
for  a  religion  that  can  be  free  from  superstition,  that  can 
accept  just  so  much  of  the  foregoing  modern  results  as  are 
indeed  established,  and  that  can  yet  supplement  them  by  an  30 
insight  which  may  show  the  universe  to  be,  after  all,  some- 
thing more  than    a  mechanism?     In  sum,  are  we  merely 
stones  that  deflect  the  stream  for  a  while,  until  the  waters 
wear  them  away?   Or  are  there  spiritual  hopes  of  humai;iity 
which  the  mechanism  of  nature  cannot  destroy?    Is  the  phi- 35 
losophy  of  life  capable  of  giving  us  something  more  than  a 
naturalism — humanized  merely  by  the  thought  that  man, 


374  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

being,  after  all,  a  well-knit  and  plastic  mechanism,  can  for 
a  time  mold  nature  to  his  ends?  So  much  for  the  great 
problem  of  modern  insight.  Let  us  turn  to  consider  the 
relation  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty  to  this  problem. 
5  What  light  can  a  study  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  as  I  just 
defined  loyalty — what  light,  I  say,  can  such  a  study  throw 
upon  this  problem?  Very  little — so  some  of  you  may  say; 
for  any  discussion  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty  can  tell  us  nothing 
to  make  nature's  mechanism  more   comprehensible.     One 

lowho  favors  loyalty  as  a  way  of  solving  life's  problems  tells 
us  about  a  certain  ideal  of  human  Hfe, — an  ideal  which,  as 
I  have  asserted,  does  tend  to  solve  our  personal  moral  prob- 
lems precisely  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  express  this  ideal 
in  our  practical  lives.     In  order  to  be  loyal  you  indeed  have 

IS  no  need  to  believe  in  any  of  the  well-known  miracles  of 
popular  tradition.  And  equally,  in  order  to  be  loyal,  you 
have  no  need,  first,  to  decide  whether  nature  is  or  is  not 
a  mechanism;  or  whether  the  modern  view  of  reahty,  as 
just  summarized,  is  or  is  not  adequate;  or  whether  the  gods 

20 exist;  or  whether  man  is  or  is  not  one  of  nature's  products 
and  temporarily  well-knit  and  plastic  machines.  Our 
doctrine  of  loyalty  is  founded  not  upon  a  decision  about 
nature's  supposed  mechanism,  but  upon  a  study  of  man's 
own  inner  and  deeper  needs.     It  is  a  doctrine  about  the 

25  plan  and  the  business  of  human  Ufe.  It  seems,  therefore, 
to  be  neutral  as  to  every  so-called  conflict  between  science 
and  religion. 

But  now,  in  answer  to  these  remarks,  I  have  to  show 
that  the  doctrine  of  loyalty,  once  rightly  understood,  has 

30  yet  a  further  application.  It  is  a  doctrine  that,  when  more 
fully  interpreted,  helps  us  toward  a  genuine  insight,  not 
only  into  the  plan  of  life,  but  into  the  nature  of  things.  The 
philosophy  of  loyalty  has  nothing  to  say  against  precisely 
so  much  of  naturalism  as  is  indeed  an  estabUshed  result  of 

35  common  sense  and  of  the  scientific  study  of  nature.  The 
theory  of  the  loyal  life  involves  nothing  superstitious— no 
trust  in  magic,  no  leaning  upon  the  intervention  of  such 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  375 

spiritual  agencies  as  the  old  mythologies  conceived.  And 
yet,  as  I  shall  insist,  nobody  can  understand  and  practise 
the  loyal  spirit  without  tending  thereby  to  get  a  true  view 
of  the  nature  of  things,  a  genuine  touch  with  reality,  which 
cannot  be  gained  without  seeing  that,  however  much  of  a  s 
mechanism  nature  may  appear  to  be,  the  real  world  is  some- 
thing much  more  than  a  mechanism,  and  much  more  signif- 
icant than  are  the  waters  which  wear  away  stones. 

Let  me  indicate  what  I  mean  by  repeating  in  brief  my 
doctrine  of  loyalty — with  reference  to  the  spirit  which  it  lo 
involves,  and  with  reference  to  the  view  of  the  realities  of 
human  Hfe  which  it  inevitably  includes. 

Whoever  is  loyal  has  found  some  cause,  I  have  said, — a 
cause  to  which,  by  his  inner  interests,  he  is  indeed  attracted 
so  that  the  cause  is  fascinating  to  his  sentiments.     But  15 
the  cause  is  also  one  to  which  the  loyal  man  is  meanwhile 
practically   and   voluntarily   devoted,   so   that   his   loyalty 
is  no  mere  glow  of  enthusiasm,  but  is  an  affair  of  his  deeds 
as  well  as  of  his  emotions.     Loyalty  I  therefore  defined 
as  the  thorough-going  and  practical  devotion  of  a  self  to  20 
a  cause.     Why  loyalty  is  a  duty;    how  loyalty  is  possible 
for  every  normal  human  being;    how  it  can  appear  early 
in  youth,  and  then  grow  though  Hfe;  how  it  can  be  at  once 
faithful  to  its  own,  and  yet  can  constantly  enlarge  its  scope; 
how  it  can  become  universally  human  in  its  interests  with-  25 
out  losing  its  concreteness,  and  without  failing  to  keep  in 
touch  with  the  personal  affections  and  the  private  concerns 
of  the  loyal  person;    how  loyalty  is  a  virtue  for  all  men, 
however  humble  and  however  exalted  they  may  be;    how 
the  loyal  service  of  the  tasks  of  a  single  possibly  narrow  3a 
life  can  be  viewed  as  a  service  of  the  cause  of  universal 
loyalty,  and  so  of  the  interests  of  all  humanity;    how  all 
special  duties  of  life  can  be  stated  in  terms  of  a  duly  general- 
ized spirit  of  loyalty;  and  how  moral  conflicts  can  be  solved, 
and  moral  divisions  made,  in  the  light  of  the  principle  of  35 
loyalty;     all  this  I  have  asserted,  although    here  is  indeed 
no   time   for  adequate  discussion.     But  hereupon   I   want 


376  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

to  concentrate  our  whole  attention,  not  upon  the  conse- 
quences and  applications  of  the  doctrine  of  loyalty,  but 
upon  the  most  central  characteristic  of  the  loyal  spirit. 
This  central  characteristic  of  the  loyal  spirit  consists  in  the 
5  fact  that  it  conceives  and  values  its  cause  as  a  reality,  as 
an  object  that  has  a  being  of  its  own;  while  the  type  of 
reahty  which  belongs  to  a  cause  is  different  from  the  type 
of  reality  which  we  ascribe  either  to  a  thing  in  the  physical 
world  or  to  a  law  of  nature.     A  cause  is  never  a  mere 

lo  mechanism.  It  is  an  essentially  spiritual  reahty.  If  the 
loyal  human  being  is  right  in  the  account  which  he  gives 
of  his  cause,  then  the  real  world  contains  beings  which 
are  not  mere  natural  objects,  and  is  subject  to  laws  which, 
without  in  the  least  running  counter  to  the  laws  of  outer 

15  nature,  are  the  laws  of  an  essentially  spiritual  realm,  whose 
type  of  being  is  superior  to  that  possessed  by  the  order  of 
nature  which  our  industrial  arts  use.  Either,  then,  loyalty 
is  altogether  a  service  of  myths,  or  else  the  causes  which 
the  loyal  serve  belong  to  a  realm  of  real  being  which  is  above 

20  the  level  of  mere  natural  fact  and  natural  law.  In  the 
latter  case  the  real  world  is  not  indifferent  to  our  human 
search  for  values.  The  modern  naturalistic  and  mechanical 
views  of  reahty  are  not,  indeed,  false  within  their  own  proper 
range,  but  they  are  inadequate  to  tell  us  the  whole  truth. 

25  And  reahty  contains,  further,  and  is  characterized  by,  an 
essentially  spiritual  order  of  being. 

I  have  been  speaking  to  persons  who,  as  I  have  trusted, 
well  know,  so  far  as  they  have  yet  had  time  to  learn  the  les- 
sons  of   Hfe,    something   of   what   loyalty   means.     Come, 

30  then,  let  us  consider  what  is  the  sort  of  object  that  you 
have  present  to  your  mind  when  you  are  loyal  to  a  cause. 
If  your  cause  is  a  reality,  what  kind  of  a  being  is  it?  If 
causes  are  reahties,  then  in  what  sort  of  a  real  world  do 
you  live? 

35  I  have  already  indicated  that,  while  loyalty  always 
includes  personal  affections,  while  you  can  never  be  loyal 
to  what  you  take  to  be  a  merely  abstract  principle,  never- 


LOYALTY    AND   INSIGHT  377 

theless,  it  is  equally  true  that  you  can  never  be  genuinely 
loyal  merely  to  an  individual  human  being,  taken  just  as 
this  detached  creature.  You  can,  indeed,  love  your  friend, 
viewed  just  as  this  individual.  But  love  for  an  individual 
is  so  far  just  a  fondness  for  a  fascinating  human  [)resence,  5 
and  is  essentially  capricious,  whether  it  lasts  or  is  transient. 
You  can  be,  and  should  be,  loyal  to  your  friendship,  to  the 
union  of  yourself  and  your  friend,  to  that  ideal  comrade- 
ship which  is  neither  of  you  alone,  and  which  is  not  the  mere 
doubleness  that  consists  of  you  and  your  friend  taken  as  two  10 
detached  beings  who  happen  to  fmd  one  another's  presence 
agreeable.  Loyally  to  a  friendship  involves  your  willing- 
ness actively  and  practically  to  create  and  maintain  a  life 
which  is  to  be  the  united  life  of  yourself  and  your  friend- 
not  the  life  of  your  friend  alone,  nor  the  life  of  yourself  15 
and  your  friend  as  you  exist  apart,  but  the  common  life, 
the  life  above  and  inclusive  of  your  distinctions,  the  one 
life  that  you  are  to  live  as  friends.  To  the  tie,  to  the  unity, 
to  the  common  life,  to  the  union  of  friends,  you  can  be  loyal. 
Without  such  loyalty  friendship  consists  only  of  its  routine  20 
of  more  or  less  attractive  private  sentiments  and  mere  meet- 
ings, each  one  of  which  is  one  more  chance  experience, 
heaped  together  with  other  chance  experiences.  But  with 
such  true  loyalty  your  friendship  becomes,  at  least  in  ideal, 
a  new  life— a  life  that  neither  of  you  could  have  alone;  a  25 
Ufe  that  is  not  a  mere  round  of  separate  private  amusements, 
but  that  belongs  to  a  new  type  of  dual  yet  unified  personal- 
ity. Nor  are  you  loyal  to  your  friendship  merely  as  to  an 
abstraction.  You  are  loyal  to  it  as  to  the  common  better 
self  of  both  of  you,  a  self  that  li\"cs  its  own  real  fife.  Either  30 
such  a  loyalty  to  your  friendship  is  a  belief  in  myths,  or 
else  such  a  type  of  higher  and  unified  dual  personality 
actually  possesses  a  reality  of  its  own, — a  reality  that  you 
cannot  adequately  describe  by  reporting,  as  to  the  taker 
of  a  census,  that  you  and  your  friend  are  two  creatures,  35 
with  two  distinct  cases  of  a  certain  sort  of  fondness  to  be 
noted  down,  and  with  each  a  separate  life  into  which,  as  an 


378  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

incident,  some  such  fondness  enters.  No;  were  a  census 
of  true  friendship  possible,  the  census  taker  should  be 
required  to  report:  Here  are  indeed  two  friends;  but  here 
is  also  the  ideal  and  yet,  in  some  higher  sense,  real  life 
S  of  their  united  personality  present, — a  life  which  belongs 
to  neither  of  them  alone,  and  which  also  does  not  exist  merely 
as  a  parcel  of  fragments,  partly  in  one,  partly  in  the  other  of 
them.  It  is  the  hfe  of  their  common  personaUty.  It  is 
a  new  spiritual  person  on  a  higher  level. 

1°  Or  again,  you  are  loyal  to  some  such  union  as  a  family 
or  a  fraternity  represents.  Or  you  are  loyal  to  your  class, 
your  college,  your  community,  your  country,  your  church. 
In  all  these  cases,  with  endless  variety  in  the  details,  your 
loyalty  has  for  its  object  each  time,  not  merely  a  group  of 

15  detached  personaUties,  but  some  ideally  significant  common 
life;  an  union  of  many  in  one;  a  comm.unity  which  also 
has  the  value  of  a  person,  and  which,  nevertheless,  cannot 
be  found  distributed  about  in  a  collection  of  fragments 
found  inside  the  detached  lives  of  the  individual  members 

20  of  the  family,  the  club,  the  class,  the  college,  the  country, 
the  church.  If  this  common  life  to  which  you  are  loyal  is 
a  reahty,  then  the  real  human  world  does  not  consist  of 
separate  creatures  alone,  of  the  mere  persons  who  flock 
in  the  streets  and  who  live  in  the  different  houses.     The 

25  human  world,  if  the  loyal  are  right,  contains  personality 
that  is  not  merely  shut  up  within  the  skin,  now  of  this, 
now  of  that,  human  creature.  It  contains  personalities 
that  no  organism  confines  within  its  bounds;  that  no  single 
life,  that  no  crowd  of  detached  lives,  comprises.     Yet  this 

30  higher  sort  of  common  personaUty,  if  the  loyal  are  right, 
is  as  real  as  we  separate  creatures  are  real.  It  is  no  abstrac- 
tion. It  lives.  It  loves,  and  we  love  it.  We  enter  into 
it.  It  is  ours,  and  we  belong  to  it.  It  works  through  us, 
the  fellow  servants  of  the  common  cause.     Yet  we  get  our 

35  worth  through  it, — the  goal  of  our  whole  moral  endeavor. 
For  those  who  are  not  merely  loyal,  but  also  enlightened, 
loyalty,  never  losing  the  defiiiiteness  and  the  concreteness 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  379 

of  its  devotion  to  some  near  and  directly  fascinating  cause, 
sees  itself  to  be  in  actual  spiritual  unity  with  the  common 
cause  of  all  the  loyal,  whoever  they  are.  The  great  cause 
for  all  the  loyal  is  in  reality  the  cause  of  the  spread  and  the 
furtherance  of  the  cause  of  the  universal  loyalty  of  all  man-  5 
kind:  a  cause  which  nobody  can  serve  except  by  choosing 
his  own  nearer  and  more  appreciated  cause — the  private 
cause  which  is  directly  his  own — his  family,  his  community, 
his  friendship,  his  calling,  and  the  calling  of  those  who 
serve  with  him.  Yet  such  personal  service — your  s[)ecial  lo 
life  cause,  your  task,  your  vocation — is  your  way  of  furthering 
the  ends  of  universal  humanity.  And  if  you  are  enlightened, 
you  know  this  fact.  Through  your  loyalty  you,  then, 
know  yourself  to  be  kin  to  all  the  loyal.  You  hereupon 
conceive  the  loyal  as  one  brotherhood,  one  invisible  church  15 
for  which  and  in  which  you  live.  The  spirit  dwells  in  this 
invisible  church, — the  holy  spirit  that  wills  the  unity  of  all 
in  fidelity  and  in  service.  Hidden  from  you  by  all  the 
natural  estrangements  of  the  present  life,  this  common  life 
of  all  the  loyal,  this  cause  which  is  the  one  cause  of  all  the  20 
loyal,  is  that  for  which  you  live.  In  spirit  you  are  really 
sundered  from  none  of  those  who  themselves  live  in  the  spirit. 
All  this,  I  say,  is  what  it  is  the  faith  of  all  the  loyal  to 
regard  as  the  real  life  in  which  we  Hve  and  move  and  have 
our  being,  precisely  in  so  far  as  men  come  to  understand  what  25 
loyalty  is.  Thus,  then,  in  general,  to  be  loyal  is  to  believe 
that  there  are  real  causes.  And  to  be  universally  loyal  is 
to  believe  that  the  one  cause  of  loyalty  itself,  the  invisible 
church  of  all  the  loyal,  is  a  reality;  something  as  real  as 
we  are.  But  causes  are  never  detached  human  beings; 30 
nor  are  causes  ever  mere  crowds,  heaps,  collections,  aggrega- 
tions of  human  beings.  Causes  are  at  once  personal  (if 
by  person  you  mean  the  ordinary  human  individual  in  his 
natural  character)  and  suf^er-persona\.  Persons  they  'are, 
because  only  where  persons  are  found  can  causes  be  defined.  35 
Super-personal  they  are,  because  no  mere  individual  human 
creature,  and  no  mere  pairs  or  groups  or  throngs  of  human 


380  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

beings,  can  ever  constitute  unified  causes.  You  cannot 
be  loyal  to  a  crowd  as  a  crowd.  A  crowd  can  shout,  as  at  a 
game  or  a  political  convention.  But  only  some  sort  of  organ- 
ized unity  of  social  life  can  either  do  the  work  of  an  unit  or 
5  hold  the  elTective  loyalty  of  the  enhghtened  worker  who 
does  not  merely  shout  with  the  throng.  And  so  when  you 
are  really  loyal  to  your  country,  your  country  does  not 
mean  to  you  merely  the  crowd,  the  mass  of  your  separate 
fellow  citizens.     Still  less  does  it  mean  the  mere  organs, 

lo  or  the  separate  servants  of  the  country, — the  custom  house, 
the  War  Department,  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  or  any  other 
office  or  official.  When  you  sing  "  My  country,  'tis  of  thee," 
you  do  not  mean,  "  My  post-office,  'tis  of  thee,"  nor  yet, 
"  My  fellow  citizens,  'tis  of  you,  just  as  the  creatures  who 

15  crowd  the  street  and  who  overfill  the  railway  cars,"  that  I 
sing.  If  the  poet  continues  in  his  own  song  to  celebrate  the 
land,  the  "  rocks  and  rills,"  the  "  woods  and  templed  hills," 
he  is  still  speaking  only  of  symbols.  What  he  means  is  the 
country  as  an  invisible  but,  in  his  opinion,  perfectly  real 

20  spiritual  unity.  General  Nogi,  in  a  recent  Japanese  publica- 
tion about  Bushido,  expressed  his  own  national  ideal  beau- 
tifully in  the  words:  "  Here  the  sovereign  and  the  people 
are  of  one  family  and  have  together  endured  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  thousands  of  years."     It  is  that  sort  of  being 

25  whereof  one  speaks  when  one  expresses  true  loyalty  to  the 
country.  The  country  is  the  spiritual  entity  that  is  none 
of  us  and  all  of  us — nore  of  us  because  it  is  our  unity;  all 
of  us  because  in  it  we  all  find  our  patriotic  unity. 

Such,  then,  is  the  idea  that  the  loyal  have  of  the  real 

30  nature  of  the  causes  which  they  serve.  I  repeat,  If  the  loyal 
are  right,  then  the  real  world  contains  other  beings  than 
mechanisms  and  individual  human  and  animal  minds.  It 
contains  spiritual  unities  which  are  as  real  as  we  are,  but 
which  certainly  do  not  belong  to  the  realm  of  a  mere  nature 

35  mechanism.  Does  not  all  this  put  the  problems  of  our 
philosophy  of  life  in  a  new  light? 

But  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  may  at  once  reply:  All  this 


LOYALTY  AND   INSIGHT  381 

speech  about  causes  is  after  all  merely  more  or  less  pleasing 
metaphor.  As  a  fact,  human  beings  are  just  individual 
natural  creatures.  They  throng  and  struggle  for  existence, 
and  love  and  hate  and  enjoy  and  sorrow  and  die.  These 
causes  are,  after  all,  mere  dreams,  or  at  best  entities  as  we  5 
have  just  described.  The  friends  like  to  talk  of  being  one; 
but  there  are  always  two  or  more  of  them,  and  the  unity 
is  a  pretty  phrase.  The  country  is,  in  the  concrete,  the 
collection  of  the  countrymen,  with  names,  formulas,  songs, 
and  so  on,  attached,  by  way  of  jwctical  Hcense  or  of  convenient  10 
abbreviation  or  of  pretty  fable.  The  poet  really  meant 
simply  that  he  was  fond  of  the  landscape,  and  was  not 
wholly  averse  to  a  good  many  of  his  countrymen,  and  was 
in  any  case  fond  of  a  good  song.  Loyalty,  like  the  rest 
of  human  life,  is  an  illusion.  Nature  is  real.  The  unity  15 
of  the  spirit  is  a  fancy. 

This,  I  say,  may  be  your  objection.  But  herewith  we 
indeed  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  certain  very  deep  philo- 
sophical problem  concerning  the  true  definition  of  what  we 
mean  by  reality.  Into  this  problem  I  have  neither  time  nor  20 
wish  to  enter  just  now.  But  upon  one  matter  I  must, 
nevertheless,  stoutly  insist.  It  is  a  matter  so  simple,  so 
significant,  so  neglected,  that  I  at  once  need  and  fear  to 
mention  it  to  you, — need  to  mention  it,  because  it  puts  our 
philosophy  into  a  position  that  quite  transforms  the  sign  if-  25 
icance  of  that  whole  modern  view  of  nature  upon  which 
I  have  been  dwelling  since  the  outset  of  this  lecture;  fear 
to  mention  it,  because  the  fact  that  it  is  so  commonly 
neglected  shows  how  hard  to  be  understood  it  has  proved. 

That  disheartening  view  of  the  foreign  and  mechanical  30 
nature  of  the  real  world  which  our  sciences  and  our  indus- 
trial arts  have  impressed  upon  the  minds  of  so  many  of  us; 
that  contempt  for  superstition;  that  denial  of  the  super- 
natural, which  seems  to  the  typical  modern  man  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom; — to  what  is  all  this  view  of  reality  due? 35 
To  the  results,  and,  as  I  believe,  to  the  really  important 
results,  of  the  modern  study  of  natural  science.     But  what 


382  JUSIAH  ROYCE 

is  the  study  of  natural  science?  Practically  considered, 
viewed  as  one  of  the  great  moral  activities  of  mankind, 
the  study  of  science  is  a  very  beautiful  and  humane  expression 
of  a  certain  exalted  form  of  loyalty.  Science  is,  practically 
5  considered,  the  outcome  of  the  absolutely  devoted  labors 
of  countless  seekers  for  natural  truth.  But  how  do  we 
human  beings  get  at  what  we  call  natural  truth?  By  obser- 
vation— so  men  say — and  by  experience.  But  by  whose 
experience?     By   the  united,   by   the   synthesized,   by   the 

lo  revised,  corrected,  rationally  criticized,  above  all  by  the 
common,  experience  of  many  individuals.  The  possibility 
of  science  rests  upon  the  fact  that  human  experience  may  be 
progressively  treated  so  as  to  become  more  and  more  an 
unity.     The  detached  individual  records  the  transit  of  a 

15  star,  observes  a  precipitate  in  a  test  tube,  stains  a  prep- 
aration and  examines  it  under  a  microscope,  collects  in 
the  field,  takes  notes  in  a  hospital — and  loyally  contributes 
his  httle  fragment  of  a  report  to  the  ideally  unified  and 
constantly  growing  totality  called  scientific  human  experi- 

2oence.  In  doing  this  he  employs  his  memory,  and  so  con- 
ceives his  own  personal  Hfe  as  an  unity.  But  equally 
he  aims — and  herein  consists  his  scientific  loyalty — to 
bring  his  personal  experience  into  unity  with  the  whole 
course  of  human  experience  in  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  his 

25  own  science.  The  collection  of  mere  data  is  never  enough. 
It  is  in  the  unity  of  their  interpretation  that  the  achieve- 
ments of  science  lie.  This  unity  is  conceived  in  the  form 
of  scientific  theories;  is  verified  by  the  comparative  and 
critical  conduct  of  experiments.     But  in  all  such  work  how 

30  manifold  are  the  presuppositions  which  we  make  when  we 
attempt  such  unification!  Here  is  no  place  to  enumerate 
these  presuppositions.  Some  of  them  you  find  discussed 
in  the  textbooks  of  the  logic  of  science.  Some  of  them 
are  instinctive,  and  almost  never  get  discussed  at  all.     But 

35  it  is  here  enough  to  say  that  we  all  presuppose  that  human 
experience  has,  or  can  by  the  loyal  efforts  of  truth  seekers  be 
made  to  possess,  a  real  unity,  superior  in  its  nature  and  sig- 


LOYALTY  AND   INSIGHT  383 

nificance  to  any  detached  observer^ s  experience,  more  genuinely 
real  than  is  the  mere  collection  of  the  experiences  of  any  set 
of  detached  observers,  hmvcicr  lar^e.  The  student  of  natural 
science  is  loyal  to  the  cause  of  the  enlargement  of  this  organ- 
ized and  criticized  realm  of  the  common  human  experience.  5 
Unless  this  unity  of  human  experience  is  a  genuine  reality, 
unless  all  the  workers  are  living  a  really  common  life,  unless 
each  man  is,  potentially  at  least,  in  a  live  spiritual  unity 
with  his  fellows,  science  itself  is  a  mere  metaphor,  its  truth 
is  an  illusion,  its  results  are  myths.  For  science  is  conceived  10 
as  true  only  by  conceiving  the  experiences  of  countless 
observers  as  the  sharing  of  a  common  realm  of  experience. 
If,  as  we  all  believe,  the  natural  sciences  do  throw  a  real, 
if  indeed  an  inadequate,  light  upon  the  nature  of  things, 
then  they  do  so  because  no  one  man's  experience  is  dis- 15 
connected  from  the  real  whole  of  human  experience.  They 
do  so  because  the  cause  to  which  the  loyal  study  of  science 
is  devoted,  the  cause  of  the  enlargement  of  human  experience, 
is  a  cause  that  has  a  supernatural,  or,  as  Professor  Miinster- 
berg  loves  to  say,  an  over-individual,  type  of  reality.  Man-  20 
kind  is  not  a  mere  collection  of  detached  individuals,  or 
man  could  possess  no  knowledge  of  any  unity  of  scientific 
truth.  If  men  are  really  only  many,  and  if  they  have  no 
such  unity  of  conscious  experience  as  loyalty  everywhere 
presupposes,  then  the  cause  of  science  also  is  a  vain  illusion,  25 
and  we  have  no  unified  knowledge  of  nature,  only  various 
private  fancies  about  nature.  If  we  know,  however  ill, 
nature's  mechanism,  we  do  so  because  human  experience 
is  not  merely  a  collection  of  detached  observations,  but 
forms  an  actual  spiritual  unity,  whose  type  is  not  that  of  30 
a  mechanism,  whose  connections  are  ideally  significant, 
whose  constitution  is  essentially  that  which  the  ideal  of 
unified  truth  requires. 

So,  then,  I  insist,  the  dilemma  is  u{)on  our  hands.     Either 
the  sciences  constitute  a  i:)rogressive,  if  imjierfect,  insight  35 
into  real  truth — and  then  the  cause  of  the  unity  of  human 
experience  is  a  real  cause  that  really  can  be  served  exactly 


384  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

as  the  lover  means  to  be  loyal  to  his  friendship  and  the  patriot 
to  his  country;  and  then  also  human  life  really  possesses 
such  unity  as  the  loyal  presuppose — or  else  none  of  this 
is  so.  But  then  loyalty  and  science  ahke  deal  with  meta- 
5  phors  and  with  myths.  In  the  first  case  the  spiritual  unity 
of  the  Ufe  that  we  lead  is  essentially  vindicated.  Causes 
such  as  the  loyal  serve  are  real.  The  cause  of  science  also 
is  real.  But  in  that  case  an  essentially  spiritual  realm, 
that  of  the  rational  unity  of  human  experience,  is   real; 

loand  possesses  a  grade  both  of  reality  and  of  worth  which 
is  superior  to  the  grade  of  reality  that  the  phenomena  of 
nature's  mechanism  exhibit  to  us.  In  the  other  case  the 
sciences  whose  results  are  supposed  to  be  discouraging  and 
unspiritual  vanish,  with  all  their  facts,  into  the  realm  of 

15  fable,  together  with  the  world  that  all  the  loyal,  including 
the  faithful  followers  of  the  sciences,  believe  to  be  real. 

I  have  here  no  time  to  discuss  the  paradoxes  of  a  totally 
skeptical  philosophy.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  such  a  total 
skepticism    is,    indeed,    self-refuting.     The    only    rational 

20  view  of  life  depends  upon  maintaining  that  what  the  loyal 
always  regard  as  a  reality,  namely,  their  cause,  is,  indeed, 
despite  all  special  illusions  of  this  or  of  that  form  of  imperfect 
loyalty,  essentially  a  type  of  reality  which  rationally  sur- 
vives all  criticisms  and  underlies  all  doubts. 

25  "  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  mc  out; 

When  me  thy  fly,  I  am  the  wings." 

This  is  what  the  genuine  object  of  loyalty,  the  unity  of  the 
spiritual  life,  always  says  to  us  when  v/e  examine  it  in  the 
right  spirit.     But  the  one  source  of  our  deepest  insight  into 

30  this  unity  of  the  spirit  which  underlies  all  the  varieties, 
and  which  leads  us  upward  to  itself  past  all  the  sunderings 
and  doubts  of  existence,  is  the  loyal  spirit  itself.  Loyalty 
asserts:  "  My  cause  is  real.  I  know  that  my  cause  Uveth." 
But  the  cause,  however  imperfectly  interpreted,  is  always 

35  some  sort  of  unity  of  the  spiritual  life  in  which  we  learn 
to  share  whenever  we  begin    to  be  loyal.     The  more  we 


LOYALTY  AND  LXSIGHT  385 

grow  in  loyalty  and  in  insight  into  the  meaning  of  our  loyalty, 
the  more  we  learn  to  think  of  some  vast  range  of  the  unity 
of  spiritual  life  as  the  reality  to  which  all  the  other  realities 
accessible  to  us  are  in  one  way  or  another  subordinate,  so 
that  they  express  this  unity,  and  show  more  or  less  what  it  5 
means.  I  believe  that  a  sound  critical  philosophy  justifies 
the  view  that  the  loyal,  precisely  in  so  far  as  they  view  their 
cause  as  real,  as  a  personal,  but  also  as  an  over-individual, 
realm  of  genuine  spiritual  life,  are  comprehending,  as  far  as 
they  go,  the  deepest  nature  of  things.  10 

Religion,  in  its  higher  sense,  always  involves  a  practical 
relation  to  a  spiritual  world  which,  in  its  significance,  in 
its  inclusiveness,  in  its  unity,  and  in  its  close  and  comfort- 
ing touch  with  our  most  intense  personal  concerns,  fulfils 
in  a  supreme  degree  the  requirements  which  loyalty  makes  15 
when  it  seeks  for  a  worthy  cause.  One  may  have  a  true 
religion  without  knowing  the  reason  why  it  is  true.  One 
may  also  have  false  religious  beliefs.  But  in  any  case  the 
afHliation  of  the  spirit  of  the  higher  religion  with  the  spirit 
of  loyalty  has  been  manifest,  I  hope,  from  the  outset  of  this  20 
discussion  of  loyalty.  By  religious  insight  one  may  very 
properly  mean  any  significant  and  true  view  of  an  object 
of  religious  devotion  which  can  be  obtained  by  any  reason- 
able means. 

In  speaking  of  loyalty  and  insight  I   have  also  given  an  25 
indication  of  that  source  of  religious  insight  which  I  beheve 
to  be,  after  all,  the  surest,  the  most  accessible,  the  most 
universal,  and,  in  its  deepest  essence,  the  most  rational. 
The  problem  of  the  modern  philosophy  of  life  is,  we  have 
said,  the  problem  of  keeping  the  spirit  of  religion,  without  30 
falling  a  prey  to  superstition.     At  the  outset  of  this  lecture 
1  told  briefly  why,  in  the  modern  world,  we  aim  to  avoid 
superstition.      The  true  reason  for  this  aim  you  now  see 
better  than  at  first  I  could  state  that  reason.     We  have 
learned,  and  wisely  learned,  that  the  great  cause  of  the  study  35 
of  nature  by  scientific  methods  is  one  of  the  principal  special 
causes  to  which   man  can  be  dex'olcd;    for  nothing  serx'es 


386  JOSIAH  ROYCE 

more  than  the  pursuit  of  the  sciences  serves  to  bind  into 
unity  the  actual  work  of  human  civilization.  To  this  cause 
of  scientific  study  we  have  all  learned  to  be,  according  to 
our  lights,  loyal.  But  the  study  of  science  makes  us  averse 
S  to  the  belief  in  magic  arts,  in  supernatural  interferences, 
in  special  providences.  The  scientific  spirit  turns  from  the 
legends  and  the  superstitions  that  in  the  past  have  sun- 
dered men,  have  inflamed  the  religious  wars,  have  filled 
the  realm  of  imagination  with  good  and  evil  spirits.     Turns 

lofrom  these — to  what?  To  a  belief  in  a  merely  mechanical 
reality?  To  a  doctrine  that  the  real  world  is  foreign  to  our 
ideals?  To  an  assurance  that  life  is  vain? 

No;  so  to  view  the  mission  of  the  study  of  science  is  to 
view   that   mission   falsely.     The    one  great  lesson  of   the 

15  triumph  of  science  is  the  lesson  of  the  vast  significance  of 
loyalty  to  the  cause  of  science.  And  this  loyalty  depends 
upon  acknowledging  the  reality  of  a  common,  a  rational,  a 
significant  unity  of  human  experience,  a  genuine  cause  which 
men  can  serve.     When  the  sciences  teach  us  to  get  rid  of 

20  superstition,  they  do  this  by  virtue  of  a  loyalty  to  the  pur- 
suit of  truth  which  is,  as  a  fact,  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  the 
spiritual  unity  of  mankind:  an  unity  which  the  students 
of  science  conceive  in  terms  of  an  unity  of  our  human 
experience  of  nature,  but  which,   after  all,   they  more  or 

25  less  unconsciously  interpret  just  as  all  the  other  loyal  souls 
interpret  their  causes;  namely,  as  a  genuine  living  reahty,  a 
life  superior  in  type  to  the  individual  lives  which  we  lead — 
worthy  of  devoted  service,  significant,  and  not  merely 
an  incidental  play  of  a  natural  mechanism.     This    unity  of 

30  human  experience  reveals  to  us  nature's  mechanisms,  but  is 
itself  no  part  of  the  mechanism  which  it  observes. 

If,  now,  we  do  as  our  general  philosophy  of  loyalty  would 
require:  if  we  take  all  our  loyalties,  in  whatever  forms  they 
may  appear,  as  more  or  less  enlightened  but  always  practical 

35  revelations  that  there  is  an  unity  of  spiritual  Hfe  which  is 
above  our  present  natural  level,  which  is  worthy  of  our 
devotion,  which  can  give  sense  to  life,  and  which  consists 


LOYALTY  AND  INSIGHT  387 

of  facts  that  are  just  as  genuinely  real  as  are  the  facts  and 
the  laws  of  outer  nature — well,  can  we  not  thus  see  our 
way  towards  a  religious  insight  which  is  free  from  super- 
stition, which  is  indifferent  to  magic  and  to  miracle,  which 
accepts  all  the  laws  of  nature  just  in  so  far  as  they  are  indeed  5 
known,  but  which  nevertheless  stoutly  insists:  "  This  world 
is  no  mere  mechanism;  it  is  full  of  a  spiritual  unity  that 
transcends  mere  nature?" 

I  believe  that  we  can  do  this.     I  believe  that  what  I  have 
merely  hinted  to  you  is  capable  of  a  much  richer  development  ^° 
than  1  have  here  given  to  these  thoughts.     I  believe,  in 
brief,  that  in  our  loyalties  we  find   our  best  sources  of  a 
genuinely  religious  insight. 

Men   have   often   said,    "  The    true    source   of   religious 
insight  is  revelation;  for  these  matters  are  above  the  powers  1 5 
of  human  reason."     Now,  I  am  not  here  to  discuss  or  to 
criticize  anybody's  type  of  revelation.     But  this  I  know, 
and  this  the  believers  in  various  supposed  revelations  have 
often  admitted — that  unless  the  aid  of  some  interior  spir- 
itual insight   comes   to  be  added   to   the  merely  external  2c 
revelation,  one  can  be  left  in  doubt  by  all  possible  signs  and 
wonders   whereby   the   revelation     undertakes   to   give    us 
convincing    external     evidence.     Religious    faith,     indeed, 
relates  to  that  which  is  above  us,  but  it  must  arise  from  that 
which  is  within  us.     And  any   faith  which  has  indeed  a  25 
worthy  religious  object  is  either  merely  a  mystic  ecstasy, 
which  must  then  be  judged,  if  at  all,  only  by  its  fruits,  or 
else  it  is  a  loyalty,  which  never  exists  without  seeking  to 
bear  fruit   in   works.     Now   my   thesis   is   that   loyalty  is 
essentially   adoration   with   service,   and   that   there   is   no  30 
true  adoration  without  practical  loyalty.     If  I  am  right, 
all  of  the  loyal  are  grasping  in  their  own  ways,  and  according 
to  their  lights,  some  form  and  degree     f  religious  truth. 
They  have  won  religious  insight;    for  they  view  something, 
at  least,  of  the  genuine  spiritual  world  in  its  real  unity,  and  35 
they  devote  themsel\-es  to  that  unity,  to  its  enlargement  and 
enrichment.     And  therefore  the}-  approach  more  and  more 


388  JOSIAH   ROYCE 

to  the  comprehension  of  that  true  spiritual  life  whereof, 
as  I  suppose,  the  real  world  essentially  consists. 

Therefore  I  find  in  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty 
which  normally  belongs  to  any  loyal  life  the  deepset  source 
5  of  a  genuinely  significant  religious  insight  which  belongs  to 
just  that  individual  in  just  his  stage  of  development. 

In  brief:  Be  loyal;  grow  in  loyalty.  Therein  lies  the 
source  of  a  rehgious  insight  free  from  superstition.  Therein 
also  lies  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  the  philosophy  of 
[o  life. 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE  i 
A.  C.  Bradley 

The  words  "  Poetry  for  poetry's  sake  "  recall  the  famous 
phrase  "  Art  for  Art."  It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  examine 
the  possible  meanings  of  that  phrase,  or  all  the  questions  it 
involves.  I  propose  to  state  briefly  what  I  understand 
by  "  Poetry  for  poetry's  sake,"  and  then,  after  guarding  s 
against  one  or  two  misapprehensions  of  the  formula,  to 
consider  more  fully  a  single  problem  connected  with  it. 
And  I  must  premise,  without  attempting  to  justify  them, 
certain  explanations.  We  are  to  consider  poetry  in  its 
essence,  and  apart  from  the  flaws  which  in  most  poems  lo 
accompany  their  poetry.  We  are  to  include  in  the  idea 
of  poetry  the  metrical  form,  and  not  to  regard  this  as  a 
mere  accident  or  a  mere  vehicle.  And,  finally,  poetry  being 
poems,  we  are  to  think  of  a  poem  as  it  actually  exists;  and, 
without  aiming  here  at  accuracy,  we  may  say  that  an  actual  15 
poem  is  the  succession  of  experiences — sounds,  images, 
thoughts,  emotions — through  which  we  pass  when  we  are 
reading  as  poetically  as  we  can.  Of  course  this  imaginative 
experience — if  I  may  use  the  phrase  for  brevity — differs 
with  every  reader  and  every  time  of  reading:  a  poem  exists  20 
in  innumerable  degrees.  But  that  insurmountable  fact 
lies  in  the  nature  of  things  and  does  not  concern  us  now. 

What  then  does  the  formula  "  Poetry  for  poetry's  sake  " 
tell  us  about  this  experience?     It  says,  as  1  understand  it, 
these  things.     First,  this  exi)erience  is  an  end  in  itself,  is  25 
worth  having  on  its  own  account,  has  an  intrinsic  value. 

1  From  "  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry,"    igog.     Printed  by  courtesy 
of  The  Mucmillan  Company. 

389 


390  A.   C.  BRADLEY 

Next,  its  poetic  value  is  this  intrinsic  worth  alone.  Poetry 
may  have  also  an  ulterior  value  as  a  means  to  culture  or 
religion;  because  it  conveys  instruction,  or  softens  the 
passions,  or  furthers  a  good  cause;  because  it  brings  the 
5  poet  fame  or  money  or  a  quiet  conscience.  So  much  the 
better:  let  it  be  valued  for  these  reasons  too.  But  its  ulterior 
worth  neither  is  nor  can  directly  determine  its  poetic  worth 
as  a  satisfying  imaginative  experience;  and  this  is  to  be 
judged  entirely  from  within.     And  to  these  two  positions 

lothe  formula  would  add,  though  not  of  necessity,  a  third. 
The  consideration  of  ulterior  ends,  whether  by  the  poet 
in  the  act  of  composing  or  by  the  reader  in  the  act  of  expe- 
riencing, tends  to  lower  poetic  value.  It  does  so  because 
it  tends  to  change  the  nature  of  poetry  by  taking  it  out  of 

15  its  own  atmosphere.  For  its  nature  is  to  be  not  a  part, 
nor  yet  a  copy,  of  the  real  world  (as  we  commonly  under- 
stand that  phrase),  but  to  be  a  world  by  itself,  independent, 
complete,  autonomous;  and  to  possess  it  fully  you  must 
enter  that  world,  conform  to  its  laws,  and  ignore  for  the  time 

20  the  beliefs,  aims,  and  particular  conditions  which  belong  to 
you  in  the  other  world  of  reality. 

Of  the  more  serious  misapprehensions  to  which  these 
statements  may  give  rise  I  will  glance  only  at  one  or  two. 
The  offensive  consequences  often  drawn  from  the  formula 

25  "  Art  for  Art  "  will  be  found  to  attach  not  to  the  doctrine 
that  Art  is  an  end  in  itself,  but  to  the  doctrine  that  Art  is 
the  whole  or  supreme  end  of  human  life.  And  as  this  latter 
doctrine,  which  seems  to  me  absurd,  is  in  any  case  quite 
different  from  the  former,  its  consequences  fall  outside  my 

30  subject.  The  formula  "  Poetry  is  an  end  in  itself  "  has  noth- 
ing to  say  on  the  various  questions  of  moral  judgment  which 
arise  from  the  fact  that  poetry  has  its  place  in  a  many- 
sided  life.  For  anything  it  says,  the  intrinsic  value  of  poetry 
might  be  so  small,  and  its  ulterior  effects  so  mischievous, 

35  that  it  had  better  not  exist.  The  formula  only  tells  us  that 
we  must  not  place  in  antithesis  poetry  and  human  good, 
for  poetry  is  one  kind  of  human  good;    and  that  we  must 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE       391 

not  determine  the  intrinsic  value  of  this  kind  of  good  by 
direct  reference  to  another.  If  we  do,  we  shall  find  our- 
selves maintaining  what  we  did  not  expect.  If  poetic  value 
lies  in  the  stimulation  of  religious  feelings,  Lead  kindly 
Light  is  no  better  poem  than  many  a  tasteless  version  of  S 
a  Psalm:  if  in  the  excitement  of  patriotism,  why  is  Scots, 
wha  hac  superior  to  We  don't  want  to  fight?  if  in  the  mitiga- 
tion of  the  passions,  the  Odes  of  Sappho  will  win  but  little 
praise:  if  in  instruction,  Armstrong's  Art  of  preserving 
Health  should  win  much.  lo 

Again,  our  formula  may  be  accused  of  cutting  poetry 
away  from  its  connection  with  hfe.  And  this  accusation 
raises  so  huge  a  problem  that  I  must  ask  leave  to  be  dogmatic 
as  well  as  brief.  There  is  plenty  of  connection  between  life 
and  poetry,  but  it  is,  so  to  say,  a  connection  underground.  ^S 
The  two  may  be  called  dififerent  forms  of  the  same  thing: 
one  of  them  having  (in  the  usual  sense)  reality,  but  seldom 
fully  satisfying  imagination ;  while  the  other  offers  something 
which  satisfies  imagination  but  has  not  full  "  reality." 
They  are  parallel  developments  which  nowhere  meet,  or,  20 
if  I  may  use  loosely  a  word  which  will  be  serviceable  later, 
they  are  analogues.  Hence  we  understand  one  by  help  of 
the  other,  and  even,  in  a  sense,  care  for  one  because  of  the 
other;  but  hence  also,  poetry  neither  is  life,  nor,  strictly 
speaking,  a  copy  of  it.  They  differ  not  only  because  one  has  25 
more  mass  and  the  other  a  more  perfect  shape,  but  because 
they  have  different  kinds  of  existence.  The  one  touches 
us  as  beings  occupying  a  given  position  in  space  and  time, 
and  having  feelings,  desires,  and  purposes  due  to  that  posi- 
tion: it  appeals  to  imagination,  but  appeals  to  much  besides.  30 
What  meets  us  in  poetry  has  not  a  position  in  the  same  series 
of  time  and  space,  or,  if  it  has  or  had  such  a  position,  it  is 
taken  apart  from  much  that  belonged  to  it  there;  and 
therefore  it  makes  no  direct  appeal  to  those  feehngs,  desiires, 
and  purposes,  but  speaks  only  to  contemplative  imagina-35 
tion — imagination  the  reverse  of  empty  or  emotionless, 
imagination  saturated  with  the  results  of  "  real  "  experience, 


392  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

but  still  contemplative.  Thus,  no  doubt,  one  main  reason 
why  poetry  has  poetic  value  for  us  is  that  it  presents  to  us 
in  its  own  way  something  which  we  meet  in  another  form  in 
nature  or  life;  and  yet  the  test  of  its  poetic  value  for  us  lies 
5  simply  in  the  question  whether  it  satisfies  our  imagination; 
the  rest  of  us,  our  knowledge  or  conscience,  for  example, 
judging  it  only  so  far  as  they  appear  transmuted  in  our 
imagination.  So  also  Shakespeare's  knowledge  or  his 
moral  insight,  Milton's  greatness  of  soul,  Shelley's  "  hate  of 

lohate  "  and  "  love  of  love",  and  that  desire  to  help  men  or 
make  them  happier  which  may  have  influenced  a  poet  in 
hours  of  meditation — all  these  have,  as  such,  no  poetical 
worth:  they  have  that  worth  only  when,  passing  through 
the  unity  of  the  poet's  being,  they  reappear  as  quahties 

15  of  imagination,  and  then  are  indeed  mighty  powers  in  the 
world  of  poetry. 

I  come  to  a  third  misapprehension,  and  so  to  my  main 
subject.  This  formula,  it  is  said,  empties  poetry  of  its 
meaning:    it  is  really  a  doctrine  of  form  for  form's  sake. 

20  "  It  is  of  no  consequence  what  a  poet  says,  so  long  as  he  says 
the  thing  well.  The  what  is  poetically  indifferent:  it  is 
the  how  that  counts.  Matter,  subject,  content,  substance, 
determines  nothing;  there  is  no  subject  with  which  poetry 
may   not   deal:    the   form,    the    treatment,    is   everything. 

25  Nay,  more:  not  only  is  the  matter  indifferent,  but  it  is 
the  secret  of  Art  to  '  eradicate  the  matter  by  means  of  the 
form,  '  "—phrases  and  statements  like  these  meet  us  every- 
where in  current  criticism  of  literature  and  the  other  arts. 
They  are  the  stock-in-trade  of  writers  who  understand  of 

30  them  Httle  more  than  the  fact  that  somehow  or  other  they 
are  not  "  bourgeois."  But  we  find  them  also  seriously  used 
by  writers  whom  we  must  respect,  whether  they  are  anony- 
mous or  not;  something  like  one  or  another  of  them  might 
be  quoted,  for  example,  from  Professor  Saintsbury,  the  late 

35  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson,  Schiller,  Goethe  himself;  and  they 
are  the  watchwords  of  a  school  in  the  one  country  where 
i5Lsthetics  bus  flourished.     They  come,  as  a  rule,  from  men 


rOETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE       393 

who  either  practise  one  of  the  arts,  or,  from  study  of  it, 
are  interested  in  its  methods.  The  general  reader — a  being 
so  general  that  I  may  say  what  I  will  of  him — is  outraged 
by  them.  He  feels  that  he  is  being  robbed  of  almost  all 
that  he  cares  for  in  a  work  of  art.  "  You  are  asking  me,"  5 
he  says,  "  to  look  at  the  Dresden  Madonna  as  if  it  were  a 
Persian  rug.  You  are  telling  me  that  the  poetic  value  of 
Hamlet  lies  solely  in  its  style  and  versification,  and  that  my 
interest  in  the  man  and  his  fate  is  only  an  intellectual  or 
moral  interest.  You  allege  that,  if  I  want  to  enjoy  theio 
poetry  of  Crossing  the  Bar,  I  must  not  mind  what  Tennyson 
says  there,  but  must  consider  solely  his  way  of  saying  it. 
But  in  that  case  I  can  care  no  more  for  a  poem  than  I  do 
for  a  set  of  nonsense  verses;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
authors  of  Hamlet  and  Crossmg  the  Bar  regarded  their  poems  is 
thus." 

These  antitheses  of  subject,  matter,  substance  on  the  one 
side,  form,  treatment,  handling  on  the  otlier,  are  the  field 
through  which  I  especially  want,  in  this  lecture,  to  indicate 
a  way.  It  is  a  field  of  battle;  and  the  battle  is  waged  for  20 
no  trivial  cause;  but  the  cries  of  the  combatants  are  terribly 
ambiguous.  Those  phrases  of  the  so-called  formalist  may 
each  mean  five  or  six  different  things.  Taken  in  one  sense 
they  seem  to  me  chieHy  true;  taken  as  the  general  reader 
not  unnaturally  takes  them,  they  seem  to  me  false,  and  25 
mischievous.  It  would  be  absurd  to  pretend  that  I  can  end 
in  a  few  minutes  a  controversy  which  concerns  the  ultimate 
nature  of  Art,  and  leads  perhaps  to  problems  not  yet  soluble; 
but  we  can  at  least  draw  some  plain  distinctions  which, 
in  this  controversy,  are  too  often  confused.  -,o 

In  the  first  place,  then,  let  us  take  "  subject  "  in  one  par- 
ticular sense;  let  us  understand  by  it  that  which  we  have  in 
view  when,  looking  at  the  title  of  an  unread  poem,  we  say 
that  the  poet  has  chosen  this  or  that  for  his  subject.  Tb.e 
subject  in  this  sense,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  is  generally  35 
something  real  or  imaginary,  as  it  exists  in  the  minds  of 
fairly    cultivated    people.     The    subject    of    Paradise   Lost 


394  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

would  be  the  story  of  the  Fall  as  that  story  exists  in  the  gen- 
eral imagination  of  a  Bible-reading  people.  The  subject 
of  Shelley's  stanzas  To  a  Skylark  would  be  the  ideas  which 
arise  in  the  mind  of  an  educated  person  when,  without 
S  knowing  the  poem,  he  hears  the  word  "skylark."  If  the 
title  of  a  poem  conveys  little  or  nothing  to  us,  the  "  subject  " 
appears  to  be  either  what  we  should  gather  by  investigating 
the  title  in  a  dictionary  or  other  book  of  the  kind,  or  else  such 
a  brief  suggestion  as  might  be  offered  by  a  person  who  had 

lo  read  the  poem,  and  who  said,  for  example,  that  the  subject 
of  The  Ancient  Manner  was  a  sailor  who  killed  an  albatross 
and  suffered  for  his  deed. 

Now  the  subject,  in  this  sense  (and  I  intend  to  use  the 
word  in  no  other),  is  not,  as  such,  inside  the  poem,  but 

15  outside  it.  The  contents  of  the  stanzas  To  a  Skylark  are 
not  the  ideas  suggested  by  the  word  "  skylark  "  to  the 
average  man;  they  belong  to  Shelley  just  as  much  as  the 
language  does.  The  subject,  therefore,  is  not  the  matter 
of  the  poem  at  all;   and  its  opposite  is  not  the  foryn  of  the 

20 poem,  but  the  whole  poem.  The  subject  is  one  thing;  the 
poem,  matter  and  form  alike,  another  thing.  This  being 
so,  it  is  surely  obvious  that  the  poetic  value  cannot  lie  in 
that  subject,  but  lies  entirely  in  its  opposite,  the  poem. 
How  can   the  subject  determine   the  value  when   on  one 

25  and  the  same  subject  ])oems  may  be  written  of  all  degrees 
of  merit  and  demerit;  or  when  a  perfect  poem  may  be  com- 
posed on  a  subject  so  slight  as  a  pet  sparrow,  and,  if  Macaulay 
may  be  trusted,  a  nearly  worthless  poem  on  a  subject  so 
stupendous  as  the  omnipresence  of  the  Deity?     The  "  for- 

3omalist"  is  here  perfectly  right.  Nor  is  he  insisting  on 
something  unimportant.  He  is  fighting  against  our  tendency 
to  take  the  work  of  art  as  a  mere  copy  or  reminder  of  some- 
thing already  in  our  heads,  or  at  the  best  as  a  suggestion 
of  some  idea  as  little  removed  as  possible  from  the  familiar. 

35  The  sightseer  who  promenades  a  picture-gallery,  remarking 
that  this  portrait  is  so  like  his  cousin,  or  that  landscape 
the  very  image  of  his  birthplace,  or  who,  after  satisfying 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE  395 

himself  that  one  picture  is  about  Elijah,  passes  on  rejoicing 
to  discover  the  subject,  and  nothing  but  the  subject,  of  the 
next — what  is  he  but  an  extreme  example  of  this  tendency? 
Well,  but  the  very  same  tendency  vitiates  much  of  our 
criticism,  much  criticism  of  Shakespeare,  for  example,  S 
which,  with  all  its  cleverness  and  partial  truth,  still  shows 
that  the  critic  never  passed  from  his  own  mind  into  Shake- 
speare's; and  it  may  be  traced  even  in  so  fine  a  critic  as 
Coleridge,  as  when  he  dwarfs  the  sublime  struggle  of  Hamlet 
into  the  image  of  his  own  unhappy  weakness.  Hazlitt  by  ^° 
no  means  escaped  its  influence.  Only  the  third  of  that  great 
trio,  Lamb,  appears  almost  always  to  have  rendered  the 
conception  of  the  composer. 

Again,  it  is  surely  true  that  we  cannot  determine  before- 
hand what  subjects  are  fit  for  Art,  or  name  any  subject  on  ^5 
which  a  good  poem  might   not  possibly  be  written.     To 
divide  subjects  into  two  groups,  the  beautiful  or  elevating, 
and  the  ugly  or  vicious,  and  to  judge  poems  according  as 
their  subjects  belong  to  one  of  these  groups  or  the  other, 
is  to  fall  into  the  same  pit,  to  confuse  with  our  pre-concep-  -° 
tions  the  meaning  of  the  poet.     What  the  thing  is  in  the 
poem  he  is  to  be  judged  by,  not  by  the  thing  as  it  was  before 
he  touched  it;    and  how  can  we  venture  to  stiy  beforehand 
that  he  cannot  make  a  true  poem  out  of  something  which 
to  us  was  merely  alluring  or  dull  or  revolting?     The  question  ^5 
whether,  having  done  so,  he  ought  to  publish  his  poem; 
whether  the  thing  in  the  poet's  work  will  not  be  still  confused 
by  the  incompetent  Puritan  or  the  incompetent  sensualist 
with  the  thing  in  his  mind,  does  not  touch  this  point;    it 
is  a  further  question,  one  of  ethics,  not  of  art.     No  doubt  3° 
the  upholders  of  "  Art  for  art's  sake  "  will  generally  be  in 
favour  of  the   courageous   course,   of  refusing  to  sacrifice 
the  better  or  stronger  part  of  the  public  to  the  weaker  or 
worse;   but  their  maxim  in  no  way  binds  them  to  this  view. 
Rossetti  suppressed  one  of  the  best  of  his  sonnets,  a  sonnet  35 
chosen    for    admiration    by    Tennyson,    himself    extremely 
sensitive  about  the  moral  effect  of  poetry;    suppressed  it, 


396  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

I  believe,  because  it  was  called  fleshly.  One  may  regret 
Rossetti's  judgment  and  at  the  same  time  respect  his  scrupu- 
lousness; but  in  any  case  he  judged  in  his  capacity  of  citizen, 
not  in  his  capacity  of  artist. 
5  So  far  then  the  "  formahst  "  appears  to  be  right.  But 
he  goes  too  far,  I  think,  if  he  maintains  that  the  subject  is 
indifferent  and  that  all  subjects  are  the  same  to  poetry. 
And  he  does  not  prove  his  point  by  observing  that  a  good 
poem  might  be  written  on  a  pin's  head,  and  a  bad  one  on 

1°  the  Fall  of  Man.  That  truth  shows  that  the  subject  settles 
nothing,  but  not  that  it  counts  for  nothing.  The  Fall 
of  Man  is  really  a  more  favourable  subject  than  a  pin's 
head.  The  Fall  of  Man,  that  is  to  say,  offers  opportunities 
of  poetic  effects  wider  in  range  and  more  penetrating  in 

15  appeal.  And  the  fact  is  that  such  a  subject,  as  it  exists 
in  the  general  imagination,  has  some  jesthetic  value  before 
the  poet  touches  it.  It  is,  as  you  may  choose  to  call  it,  an 
inchoate  poem  or  the  debris  of  a  poem.  It  is  not  an  abstract 
idea  or  a  bare  isolated  fact,  but  an  assemblage  of  figures, 

20  scenes,  actions,  and  events,  which  already  appeal  to  emo- 
tional imagination ;  and  it  is  already  in  some  degree  organized 
and  formed.  In  spite  of  this  a  bad  poet  would  make  a  bad 
poem  on  it;  but  then  we  should  say  he  was  unworthy  of  the 
subject.     And  we  should  not  say  this  if  he  wrote  a  bad  poem 

25  on  a  pin's  head.  Conversely,  a  good  poem  on  a  pin's  head 
would  almost  certainly  transform  its  subject  far  more  than 
a  good  poem  on  the  Fall  of  Man.  It  might  revolutionize 
its  subject  so  completely  that  we  should  say,  ''  The  sub- 
ject may  be  a  pin's  head,  but  the  substance  of  the  poem  has 

30  very  little  to  do  with  it." 

This  brings  us  to  another  and  a  different  antithesis. 
Those  figures,  scenes,  e\'ents,  that  form  part  of  the  subject 
called  the  Fall  of  Man,  are  not  the  substance  of  Paradise 
Lost;    but  in  Paradise  Lost  there  are  figures,  scenes,  and 

35  events  resembling  them  in  some  degree.  These,  with  much 
more  of  the  same  kind,  may  be  described  as  its  substance, 
and  mav  then  be  contrasted  with  the  measured  language 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE  397 

of  the  poem,  which  will  be  called  its  form.  Subject  is  the 
opposite  not  of  form  but  of  the  whole  poem.  Substance 
is  within  the  poem,  and  its  opposite,  form,  is  also  within 
the  poem.  I  am  not  criticizing  this  antithesis  at  present, 
but  evidently  it  is  quite  different  from  the  other.  It  is  5 
practically  the  distinction  used  in  the  old-fashioned  criticism 
of  epic  and  drama,  and  it  flows  down,  not  unsullied,  from 
Aristotle.  Addison,  for  example,  in  examining  Paradise 
Lost  considers  in  order  the  fable,  the  characters,  and  the 
sentiments;  these  will  be  the  substance:  then  he  considers i° 
the  language,  that  is,  the  style  and  numbers;  this  will 
be  the  form.  In  Uke  manner,  the  substance  or  meaning 
of  a  lyric  may  be  distinguished  from  the  form. 

Now  I  beUeve  it  will  be  found  that  a  large  part  of  the 
controversy  we  are  dealing  with  arises  from  a  confusion  ^  5 
between  these  two  distinctions  of  substance  and  form,  and 
of  subject  and  poem.     The  extreme  formalist  lays  his  whole 
weight  on  the  form  because  he  thinks  its  opposite  is  the 
mere  subject.     The  general  reader  is  angry,  but  makes  the 
same  mistake,  and  gives  to  the  subject  praises  that  rightly  20 
belong  to  the  substance.     I  will  read  an  example  of  what 
I  mean.     I  can  only  explain  the  following  words  of  a  good 
critic  by  supposing  that  for  the  moment  he  has  fallen  into 
this  confusion:     "  The  mere  matter  of  all  poetry— to  wit, 
the  appearances  of  nature  and  the  thoughts  and  feelings  25 
of  men — being  unalterable,   it   follows   that   the  difference 
between  poet  and  poet  will  depend  upon  the  manner  of 
each  in  applying  language,  metre,  rhyme,  cadence,  and  what 
not,  to  this  invariable  material."     What  has  become  here 
of    the    substance    of    Paradise    Lost — the    story,    scenery,  30 
characters,   sentiments   as   they   are   in    the   poem?     They 
have  vanished  clean  away.     Nothing  is  left  but  the  form 
on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  not  even  the  subject,  but  a 
supposed    invariable    material,    the   appearances  of  nature 
and   the   thoughts   and   feelings  of  men.     Is   it  surprising 35 
that  the  whole  value  should  then  be  found  in  the  form? 

So  far  we  have  assumed  that  this  antithesis  of  substance 


398  A.   C.   BRADLEY 

and  form  is  valid,  and  that  it  always  has  one  meaning. 
In  reality  it  has  several,  but  we  will  leave  it  in  its  present 
shape,  and  pass  to  the  question  of  its  validity.  And  this 
question  we  are  compelled  to  raise,  because  we  have  to  deal 
5  with  the  two  contentions  that  the  poetic  value  lies  wholly 
or  mainly  in  the  substance,  and  that  it  lies  wholly  or  mainly 
in  the  form.  Now  these  contentions,  whether  false  or  true, 
may  seem  at  least  to  be  clear;  but  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that 
they  are  both  of  them  false,  or  both  of  them  nonsense:  false 

loif  they  concern  anything  outside  the  poem,  nonsense  if 
they  apply  to  something  in  it.  For  what  do  they  evidently 
imply?  They  imply  that  there  are  in  a  poem  two  parts, 
factors,  or  components,  a  substance  and  a  form;  and  that 
you  can  conceive  them  distinctly  and  separately,  so  that 

15  when  you  are  speaking  of  the  one  you  are  not  speaking  of 
the  other.  Otherwise  how  can  you  ask  the  question. 
In  which  of  them  does  the  value  lie?  But  really  in  a  poem, 
apart  from  defects,  there  are  no  such  factors  or  components; 
and  therefore  it  is  strictly  nonsense  to  ask  in  which  of  them 

20  the  value  lies.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  substance  and 
the  form  referred  to  are  not  in  the  poem,  then  both  the 
contentions  are  false,  for  its  poetic  \-alue  lies  in  itself. 

What  I  mean  is  neither  new  nor  mysterious;    and  it  will 
be  clear,  I  believe,  to  any  one  who  reads  poetry  poetically 

25  and  who  closely  examines  his  experience.  When  you  are 
reading  a  poem,  I  would  ask — not  analysing  it,  and  much 
less  criticizing  it,  but  allowing  it,  as  it  proceeds,  to  make  its 
full  impression  on  you  through  the  exertion  of  your  recreat- 
ing imagination — do  you  then  apprehend  and  enjoy  as  one 

30  thing  a  certain  meaning  or  substance,  and  as  another  thing 
certain  articulate  sounds,  and  do  you  somehow  compound 
these  two?  Surely  you  do  not,  any  more  than  you  apprehend 
apart,  when  you  see  some  one  smile,  those  lines  in  the  face 
which  express  a  feeling,  and  the  feeling  that  the  lines  express. 

35  Just  as  there  the  Unes  and  their  meaning  are  to  you  one  thing, 
not  two,  so  in  poetry  the  meaning  and  the  sounds  are  one: 
there  is,  if  I  may  put  it  so,  a  resonant  meaning,  or  a  meaning 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE  399 

resonance.  If  you  read  the  line,  "  The  sun  is  warm,  the 
sky  is  clear,"  you  do  not  experience  separately  the  image 
of  a  warm  sun  and  clear  sky,  on  the  one  side,  and  certain 
unintelligil)le  rhythmical  sounds  on  the  other;  nor  yet  do 
you  experience  them  together,  side  by  side;  but  you  s 
experience  the  one  in  the  other.  And  in  like  manner  when 
you  are  really  reading  Hamlet,  the  action  and  the  characters 
are  not  something  which  you  conceive  apart  from  the  words; 
you  apprehend  them  from  point  to  point  in  the  words,  and 
the  words  as  expressions  of  them.  Afterwards,  no  doubt,  lo 
when  you  are  out  of  the  poetic  experience  but  remember 
it,  you  may  by  analysis  decompose  this  unity,  and  attend  to 
a  substance  more  or  less  isolated,  and  a  form  more  or  less 
isolated.  But  these  are  things  in  your  analytic  head,  not 
in  the  poem,  which  is  poetic  experience.  And  if  you  want  15 
to  have  the  poem  again,  you  cannot  find  it  by  adding  together 
these  two  products  of  decomposition;  you  can  only  find 
it  by  passing  back  into  poetic  experience.  And  then  what 
you  recover  is  no  aggregate  of  factors,  it  is  a  unity  in  which 
you  can  no  more  separate  a  substance  and  a  form  than  you  20 
can  separate  hving  blood  and  the  life  in  the  blood.  This 
unity  has,  if  you  Hke,  various  "  aspects  "  or  "  sides,"  but 
they  are  not  factors  or  parts;  if  you  try  to  examine  one, 
you  find  it  is  also  the  other.  Call  them  substance  and  form 
if  you  please,  but  these  are  not  the  reciprocally  exclusive  25 
substance  and  form  to  which  the  two  contentions  must 
refer.  They  do  not  "  agree,"  for  they  are  not  apart:  they 
are  one  thing  from  diliferent  points  of  view,  and  in  that  sense 
identical.  And  this  identity  of  content  and  form,  you  will 
say,  is  no  accident;  it  is  of  the  essence  of  poetry  in  so  far 30 
as  it  is  poetry,  and  of  all  art  in  so  far  as  it  is  art.  Just  as 
there  is  in  music  not  sound  on  one  side  and  a  meaning  on 
the  other,  but  expressive  sound,  and  if  you  ask  what  is  the 
meaning  you  can  only  answer  by  pointing  to  the  sounds; 
just  as  in  painting  there  is  not  a  meaning  plus  paint,  but  a  35 
meaning  in  paint,  or  significant  paint,  and  no  man  can 
really  express  the  meaning  in  any  other  way  than  in  paint 


400  A.   C.  BRADI.EY 

and  in  this  paint;  so  in  a  poem  the  true  content  and  the  true 
form  neither  exist  nor  can  be  imagined  apart.  When  then 
you  are  asked  whether  the  value  of  a  poem  lies  in  a  substance 
got  by  decomposing  the  poem,  and  present,  as  such,  only 

5  in  reflective  analysis,  or  whether  the  value  lies  in  a  form 
arrived  at  and  existing  in  the  same  way,  you  will  answer, 
"  It  Ues  neither  in  one,  nor  in  the  other,  nor  in  any  addi- 
tion of  them,  but  in  the  poem,  where  they  are  not." 

We  have  then,  first,  an  antithesis  of  subject  and  poem. 

loThis  is  clear  and  valid;  and  the  question  in  which  of  them 
does  the  value  He  is  intelligible;  and  its  answer  is,  In  the 
poem.  We  have  next  a  distinction  of  substance  and  form. 
If  the  substance  means  ideas,  images,  and  the  like  taken 
alone,  and  the  form  means  the  measured  language  taken 

15  by  itself,  this  is  a  possible  distinction,  but  it  is  a  distinction 
of  things  not  in  the  poem,  and  the  value  lies  in  neither  of 
them.  If  substance  and  form  mean  anything  in  the  poem, 
then  each  is  involved  in  the  other,  and  the  question  in  which 
of  them  the  value  Ues  has  no  sense.     No  doubt  you  may 

20  say,  speaking  loosely,  that  in  this  poet  or  poem  the  aspect 
of  substance  is  the  more  noticeable,  and  in  that  the  aspect 
of  form;  and  you  may  pursue  interesting  discussions  on  this 
basis,  though  no  principle  or  ultimate  question  of  value 
is  touched  by  them.     And  apart  from  that  question,  of 

25  course,  I  am  not  denying  the  usefulness  and  necessity  of  the 
distinction.  We  cannot  dispense  with  it.  To  consider 
separately  the  action  or  the  characters  of  a  play,  and  sepa- 
rately its  style  or  versification,  is  both  legitimate  and  valuable, 
so  long  as  we  remember  what  we  are  doing.     But  the  true 

30  critic  in  speaking  of  these  apart  does  not  really  think  of 
them  apart;  the  whole,  the  poetic  experience,  of  which  they 
are  but  aspects,  is  always  in  his  mind;  and  he  is  always 
aiming  at  a  richer,  truer,  more  intense  repetition  of  that 
experience.     On    the    other    hand,    when    the    question    of 

35  principle,  of  poetic  value,  is  raised,  these  aspects  must  fall 
apart  into  comi)onents,  sci)arately  concei\-able;  and  then 
there  arise  two  heresies,  ec[ually  false,  that  the  value  lies 


POETRY  FOR  rOETRY'S  SAKE       401 

in  one  of  two  things,  both  of  which  are  outside  the  poem, 
and  therefore  where  its  value  cannot  lie. 

On  the  heresy  of  the  separable  substance  a  few  additional 
words  will  suffice.     This  heresy  is  seldom  formulated,  but 
perhaps    some    unconscious    holder    of     it     may    object:  5 
"  Surely  the  action  and  the  characters  of  Hamlet  are  in  the 
play;  and  surely  I  can  retain  these,  though  I  have  forgotten 
all  the  words.     I  admit  that  I  do  not  possess  the  whole 
poem,  but  I  possess  a  part,  and  the  most  important  part." 
And  I  would  answer:    "  If  we  are  not  concerned  with  any  10 
question  of  principle,  I  accept  all  that  you  say  except  the 
last    words,    which    do    raise    such    a    question.     Speaking 
loosely,  I  agree  that  the  action  and  characters,  as  you  per- 
haps conceive  them,  together  with  a  great  deal  more,  are 
in  the  poem.     Even   then,   however,  you  must  not  claim  15 
to  possess  all  of  this  kind  that  is  in  the  poem;   for  in  forget- 
ting the  words  you  must  have  lost  innumerable  details  of 
the  action   and   the  characters.     And,   when   the   question 
of  value  is  raised,  I  must  insist  that  the  action  and  characters, 
as  you  conceive  them,  are  not  in  Hamlet  at  all.     If  they  are,  20 
point  them  out.     You  cannot  do  it.     What  you  find  at  any 
moment   of  that   succession   of  experiences   called   Hamlet 
is  words.     In  tliese  words,  to  speak  loosely  again,  the  action 
and  characters  (more  of  them  than  you  can  conceive  apart) 
are  focussed;    but  your  experience  is  not  a  combination  of  25 
them,  as  ideas,  on  the  one  side,  with  certain  sounds  on  the 
other;    it  is  an  experience  of  something  in  which  the  two 
are  indissolul)ly  fused.     If  you  deny  this,  to  be  sure  I  can 
make  no  answer,  or  can  only  answer  that  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  you  cannot  read  poetically,  or  else  are  mis- 30 
interpreting  your  experience.     But  if  you  do  not  deny  this, 
then  3'ou  will  admit  that  the  action  and  characters  of  the 
poem,  as  you  se[)arately  imagine  them,  are  no  part  of  it, 
but  a  product  of  it  in  your  reflecti\e  imagination,  a  faint 
analogue  of  one  aspect  of  it  taken  in  detachment  frohi  the  35 
whole.     Well,  I  do  not  tiiir^pule,  I  would  even  insist,  that, 
in  the  case  of  co  long  a  poem  as  Hamlet,  it  may  be  neccs- 


402  A.   C.   BRADLEY 

sary  from  time  to  time  to  interrupt  the  poetic  experience, 
in  order  to  enrich  it  by  forming  such  a  product  and  dwelHng 
on  it.  Nor,  in  a  wide  sense  of  '  poetic,'  do  I  question  the 
poetic  value  of  this  product,  as  you  think  of  it  apart  from 
S  the  poem.  It  resembles  our  recollections  of  the  heroes 
of  history  or  legend,  who  move  about  in  our  imaginations, 
'  forms  more  real  than  living  man,'  and  are  worth  much 
to  us  though  we  do  not  remember  anything  they  said. 
Our  ideas  and  images  of  the  '  substance  '  of  a  poem  have 

I o  this  poetic  value,  and  more,  if  they  are  at  all  adequate. 
But  they  cannot  determine  the  poetic  value  of  the  poem, 
for  (not  to  speak  of  the  competing  claims  of  the  '  form  ') 
nothing  that  is  outside  the  poem  can  do  that,  and  they, 
as  such,  are  outside  it." 

15  Let  us  turn  to  the  so-called  form — style  and  versification. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  mere  form  in  poetry.  All  form 
is  expression.  Style  may  have  indeed  a  certain  aesthetic 
worth  in  partial  abstraction  from  the  particular  matter  it 
conveys,  as  in  a  well-built  sentence  you  may  take  pleasure 

20  in  the  build  almost  apart  from  the  meaning.  Even  so  style 
is  expressive — presents  to  sense,  for  e.xample,  the  order, 
ease,  and  rapidity  with  which  ideas  move  in  the  writer's 
mind — but  it  is  not  expressive  of  the  meaning  of  that  par- 
ticular  sentence.     And   it   is   possible,   interrupting   poetic 

25  experience,  to  decompose  it  and  abstract  for  comparatively 
separate  consideration  this  nearly  formal  element  of  style. 
But  the  aesthetic  value  of  style  so  taken  is  not  considerable; 
you  could  not  read  with  pleasure  for  an  hour  a  composition 
which  had  no  other  merit.     And  in  poetic  experience  you 

30  never  apprehend  this  value  by  itself;  the  style  is  here 
expressive  also  of  a  particular  meaning,  or  rather  is  one 
aspect  of  that  unity  whose  other  aspect  is  meaning.  So 
that  what  you  apprehend  may  be  called  indifferently  an 
expressed  meaning  or  a  significant  form.     Perhaps  on  this 

35  point  I  may  in  Oxford  appeal  to  authority,  that  of  Matthew 
Arnold  and  Walter  Pater,  the  latter  at  any  rate  an  authority 
whom  the  formaUst  will  not  despise.     What  is  the  gist  of 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE       403 

Pater's  teaching  about  style,  if  it  is  not  that  in  the  end 
the  one  virtue  of  style  is  truth  or  adequacy;  that  the  word, 
phrase,  sentence,  should  express  perfectly  the  writer's  per- 
ception, feehng,  image,  or  thought;  so  that,  as  we  read  a 
descriptive  phrase  of  Keats's,  we  exclaim,  "  That  is  the  thing  s 
itself  ";  so  that,  to  quote  Arnold,  the  words  are  "  symbols 
equivalent  with  the  thing  symbolized,"  or,  in  our  technical 
language,  a  form  identical  with  its  content?  Hence  in  true 
poetry  it  is,  in  strictness,  impossible  to  express  the  meaning 
in  any  but  its  own  words,  or  to  change  the  words  without  lo 
changing  the  meaning.  A  translation  of  such  poetry  is 
not  really  the  old  meaning  in  a  fresh  dress;  it  is  a  new  prod- 
uct, something  like  the  poem,  though,  if  one  chooses  to  say 
so,  more  Hke  it  in  the  aspect  of  meaning  than  in  the  aspect 
of  form.  IS 

No  one  who  understands  poetry,  it  seems  to  me,  would 
dispute  this,  were  it  not  that,  faUing  away  from  his  experi- 
ence, or  misled  by  theory,  he  takes  the  word  "  meaning  " 
in  a  sense  almost  ludicrously  inapplicable  to  poetry.  People 
say,  for  instance,  "  steed  "  and  "  horse  "  have  the  same  mean-  20 
ing;  and  in  bad  poetry  they  have,  but  not  in  poetry  that 
is  poetry. 

"  Bring  forth  the  horse!  "     The  horse  was  brought: 
In  truth  he  was  a  noble  steed! 

says  Byron  in  Mazeppa.     If  the  two  words  mean  the  same  25 
here,  transpose  them: 

"  Bring  forth  the  steed!  "     The  steed  was  brought: 
In  truth  he  was  a  noble  horse! 

and  ask  again  if  they  mean  the  same.  Or  let  me  take  a 
line  certainly  very  free  from  "  poetic  diction:  "  30 

To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question. 

You  may  say  that  this  means  the  same  as  "  What  is  just 
now  occupying  my  attention  is  the  comparative  disadvan- 
tages of  continuing  to  live  or  putting  an  end  to  myself." 
And  for  practical  purposes — the  purpose,  for  example,  of  3  5 


404  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

a  coroner — it  does.  But  as  the  second  version  altogether 
misrepresents  the  speaker  at  that  moment  of  his  existence, 
while  the  first  does  represent  him,  how  can  they  for  any 
but  a  practical  or  logical  purpose  be  said  to  have  the  same 
S  sense?  Hamlet  was  well  able  to  "  unpack  his  heart  with 
words,"  but  he  will  not  unpack  it  with  our  paraphrases. 

These  considerations  apply  equally  to  versification.     If 
I  take  the  famous  line  which  describes  how  the  souls  of  the 
dead  stood  waiting  by  the  river,  imploring  a  passage  from 
lo  Charon: 

Tendebantque  manus  ripae  ulterioris  amore, 

and  if  I  translate  it,  "  and  were  stretching  forth  their  hands 
in  longing  for  the  further  bank,"  the  charm  of  the  original 

15  has  fled.  Why  has  it  fled?  Partly  (but  we  have  dealt  with 
that)  because  I  have  substituted  for  five  words,  and  those 
the  words  of  Virgil,  twelve  words,  and  those  my  own.  In 
some  measure  because  I  have  turned  into  rhythmless  prose 
a  fine  of  verse  which,  as  mere  sound,  has  unusual  beauty. 

20  But  much  more  because  in  doing  so  I  have  also  changed 
the  meaning  of  Virgil's  line.  What  that  meaning  is  /  can- 
not say:  Virgil  has  said  it.  But  I  can  see  this  much,  that 
the  translation  conveys  a  far  less  vivdd  picture  of  the  out- 
stretched hands  and  of  their  remaining  outstretched,  and  a 

25  far  less  poignant  sense  of  the  distance  of  the  shore  and  the 
longing  of  the  souls.  And  it  does  so  partly  because  this 
picture  and  this  sense  are  conveyed  not  only  by  the  obvious 
meaning  of  the  words,  but  through  the  long-drawn  sound  of 
"  tendebantque,"   through   the   time  occupied  by  the  five 

30 syllables  and  therefore  by  the  idea  of  "ulterioris,"  and 
through  the  identity  of  the  long  sound  ''  or  "  in  the  penult- 
imate syllables  of  "  ulterioris  amore  " — all  this,  and  much 
more,  apprehended  not  in  this  analytical  fashion,  nor  as 
added  to  the  beauty  of  mere  sound  and  to  the  obvious  mean- 

35  ing,  but  in  unity  with  them  and  so  as  expressive  of  the  poetic 
meaning  of  the  whole. 

It  is  always  so  in  fine  poetry.     The  value  of  versification. 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE       405 

when  it  is  indissolubly  fused  with  meaning,  can  hardly  be 
exaggerated.  The  gift  for  feehng  it,  even  more  perhaps 
than  the  gift  for  feeUng  the  value  of  style,  is  the  specific 
gift  for  poetry,  as  distinguished  from  other  arts.  But 
versification,  taken,  as  far  as  possible,  all  by  itself,  has  a  s 
very  different  worth.  Some  aesthetic  worth  it  has;  how 
much  you  may  experience  by  reading  poetry  in  a  language 
of  which  you  do  not  understand  a  syllable.  The  pleasure 
is  quite  appreciable,  but  it  is  not  great;  nor  in  actual 
poetic  experience  do  you  meet  with  it,  as  such,  at  all.  For,  lo 
I  repeat,  it  is  not  added  to  the  pleasure  of  the  meaning  when 
you  read  poetry  that  you  do  understand:  by  some  mystery 
the  music  is  then  the  music  of  the  meaning,  and  the  two  are 
one.  However  fond  of  versification  you  might  be,  you 
would  tire  very  soon  of  reading  verses  in  Chinese;  and  before  15 
long  of  reading  Virgil  and  Dante  if  you  were  ignorant  of 
their  languages.  But  take  the  music  as  it  is  in  the  poem, 
and  there  is  a  marvellous  change.     Now 

It  gives  a  very  echo  to  the  seat 

Where  Love  is  throned;  20 

or  "  carries  far  into  your  heart,"  almost  Uke  music  itself, 
the  sound 

Of  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things 
And  battles  long  ago. 

What  then  is  to  be  said  of  the  following  sentence  of  the  25 
critic  quoted  before:   "  But  when  any  one  who  knows  what 
poetry  is  reads — 

Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  silence, 

he  sees  that,  quite  independently  of  the  meaning,  .  .  .30 
there  is  one  note  added  to  the  articulate  music  of  the  world — 
a  note  that  never  will  leave  off  resounding  till  the  eternal 
silence  itself  gulfs  it?"  I  must  think  that  the  writer  is 
deceiving  himself.  For  I  could  quite  understand  his  enthu- 
siasm, if  it  were  an  enthusiasm  for  the  music  of  the  meaning;  35 


406  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

but  as  for  the  music,  "  quite  independently  of  the  mean- 
ing," so  far  as  I  can  hear  it  thus  (and  I  doubt  if  any  one  who 
knows  EngUsh  can  quite  do  so),  I  find  it  gives  some  pleasure, 
but  only  a  trifling  pleasure.     And  indeed  I  venture  to  doubt 

5  whether,  considered  as  mere  sound,  the  words  are  at  all 
exceptionally  beautiful,  as  Virgil's  line  certainly  is. 

When  poetry  answers  to  its  idea  and  is  purely  or  almost 
purely  poetic,  we  find  the  identity  of  form  and  content; 
and  the  degree  of  purity  attained  may  be  tested  by  the 

I  o  degree  in  which  we  feel  it  hopeless  to  convey  the  effect  of  a 
poem  or  passage  in  any  form  but  its  own.  Where  the  notion 
of  doing  so  is  simply  ludicrous,  you  have  quintessential 
poetry.  But  a  great  part  even  of  good  poetry,  especially 
in  long  works,  is  of  a  mixed  nature;    and  so  we  find  in  it 

IS  no  more  than  a  partial  agreement  of  a  form  and  substance 
which  remain  to  some  extent  distinct.  This  is  so  in  many 
passages  of  Shakespeare  (the  greatest  of  poets  when  he 
chose,  but  not  always  a  conscientious  poet) ;  passages  where 
something  was  wanted  for  the  sake  of  the  plot,  but  he  did 

20  not  care  about  it  or  was  hurried.  The  conception  of  the 
passage  is  then  distinct  from  the  execution,  and  neither  is 
inspired.  This  is  so  also,  I  think,  wherever  we  can  truly 
speak  of  merely  decorative  effect.  We  seem  to  perceive 
that  the  poet  had  a  truth  or  fact — philosophical,  agricultural, 

25  social — distinctly  before  him,  and  then,  as  we  say,  clothed 
it  in  metrical  and  coloured  language.  Most  argumentative, 
didactic,  or  satiric  poems  are  partly  of  this  kind;  and  in 
imaginative  poems  anything  which  is  really  a  mere  ''  con- 
ceit "  is  mere  decoration.     We  often  deceive  ourselves  in 

30  this  matter,  for  what  we  call  decoration  has  often  a  new 
and  genuinely  poetic  content  of  its  own;  but  wherever  there 
is  mere  decoration,  w^e  judge  the  poetry  to  be  not  wholly 
poetic.  And  so  when  Wordsworth  inveighed  against  poetic 
diction,  though  he  hurled  his  darts  rather  wildly,  what  he 

35  was  rightly  aiming  at  was  a  phraseology,  not  the  living 
body  of  a  new  content,  but  the  mere  worn-out  body  of  an 
old  one. 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE  407 

In  pure  poetry  it  is  otherwise.  Pure  poetry  is  not  the 
decoration  of  a  preconceived  and  clearly  defmed  matter: 
it  springs  from  the  creative  im[)ulse  of  a  vague  imaginative 
mass  pressing  for  development  and  definition.  If  the  poet 
already  knew  exactly  what  he  meant  to  say,  why  should  he  5 
write  the  poem?  The  poem  would  in  fact  already  be  written. 
For  only  its  completion  can  reveal,  even  to  him,  exactly 
what  he  wanted.  When  he  began  and  while  he  was  at 
work,  he  did  not  possess  his  meaning;  it  possessed  him. 
It  was  not  a  fully  formed  soul  asking  for  a  body:  it  was  anio 
inchoate  soul  in  the  inchoate  body  of  perhaps  two  or  three 
vague  ideas  and  a  few  scattered  phrases.  The  growing 
of  this  body  into  its  full  stature  and  perfect  shape  was  the 
same  thing  as  the  gradual  self-definition  of  the  meaning. 
And  this  is  the  reason  why  such  poems  strike  us  as  creations,  15 
not  manufactures,  and  have  the  magical  effect  which  mere 
decoration  cannot  produce.  This  is  also  the  reason  why, 
if  we  insist  on  asking  for  the  meaning  of  such  a  poem,  we 
can  only  be  answered  "  It  means  itself." 

And  so  at  last  I  may  explain  why  I  have  troubled  myself  20 
and  you  with  what  may  seem  an  arid  controversy  about 
mere  words.     It  is   not   so.     These  heresies   which  would 
make  poetry  a  compound  of  two  factors — a  matter  common 
to  it  with  the  merest  prose,  plus  a  poetic  form,  as  the  one 
heresy  says:   a  poetical  substance  plus  a  negligible  form,  as  25 
the  other  says — are  not  only  untrue,  they  are  injurious  to 
the  dignity  of  poetry.     In  an  age  already  inclined  to  shrink 
from  those  higher  realms  where  poetry  touches  religion  and 
philosophy,  the  formalist  heresy  encourages  men  to  taste 
poetry  as  they  would  a   line  wine,  which  has  indeed  an  3° 
aesthetic  value,  but  a  small  one.     And  then  the  natural  man, 
finding  an  empty  form,  hurls  into  it  the  matter  of  cheap 
pathos,  rancid  sentiment,  vulgar  humour,  bare  lust,  ravenous 
vanity — everything   which,   in   Schiller's   phrase,   the   form 
should  extirpate,  but  which  no  mere  form  can  extirpate.  35 
And  the  other  heresy — which  is  indeed  rather  a  practice 


408  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

than  a  creed — encourages  us  in  the  habit  so  dear  to  us  of 
putting  our  own  thoughts  or  fancies  into  the  place  of  the 
poet's  creation.  What  he  meant  by  Hamlet,  or  the  Ode 
to  a  Nightingale,  or  Abt  Vogler,  we  say,  is  this  or  that  which 
5  we  knew  already;  and  so  we  lose  what  he  had  to  tell  us. 
But  he  meant  what  he  said,  and  said  what  he  meant. 

Poetry  in  this  matter  is  not,  as  good  critics  of  painting 
and  music  often  aflEirm,  different  from  the  other  arts;  in  all 
of  them  the  content  is  one   thing  with  the  form.     What 

lo  Beethoven  meant  by  his  symphony,  or  Turner  by  his  pic- 
ture, was  not  something  which  you  can  name,  but  the  pic- 
ture and  the  symphony.  Meaning  they  have,  but  what 
meaning  can  be  said  in  no  language  but  their  own :  and  we 
know  this,  though  some  strange  delusion  makes  us  think 

15  the  meaning  has  less  worth  because  we  cannot  put  it  into 
words.  Well,  it  is  just  the  same  with  poetry.  But  because 
poetry  is  words,  we  vainly  fancy  that  some  other  words 
than  its  own  will  express  its  meaning.  And  they  will  do 
so  no  more — or,  if  you  like  to  speak  loosely,  only  a  little 

20  more — than  words  will  express  the  meaning  of  the  Dresden 
Madonna.  Something  a  little  like  it  they  may  indeed 
express.  And  we  may  find  analogues  of  the  meaning  of 
poetry  outside  it,  which  may  help  us  to  appropriate  it. 
The  other  arts,  the  best  ideas  of  philosophy  or  religion, 

25  much  that  nature  and  life  offer  us  or  force  upon  us,  are  akin 
to  it.  But  they  are  only  akin.  Nor  is  it  the  expression 
of  them.  Poetry  does  not  present  to  imagination  our  high- 
est knowledge  or  beHef,  and  much  less  our  dreams  and 
opinions;    but  it,  content  and  form  in  unity,  embodies  in 

30  its  own  irreplaceable  way  something  which  embodies  itself 
also  in  other  irreplaceable  ways,  such  as  philosophy  or 
religion.  And  just  as  each  of  these  gives  a  satisfaction 
which  the  other  cannot  possibly  give,  so  we  find  in  poetry, 
which  cannot  satisfy  the  needs  they  meet,  that  which  by 

35  their  natures  they  cannot  afford  us.  But  we  shall  not  find 
it  fully  if  we  look  for  something  else. 


POETRY  FOR  POETRY'S  SAKE       409 

And  now,  when  all  is  said,  the  question  will  still  recur, 
though  now  in  quite  another  sense,  What  does  poetry 
mean?  This  unique  expression,  which  cannot  be  replaced 
by  any  other,  still  seems  to  be  trying  to  express  something 
beyond  itself.  And  this,  we  feel,  is  also  what  the  other  arts,  5 
and  rehgion,  and  philosophy  are  trying  to  express:  and  that 
is  what  impels  us  to  seek  in  vain  to  translate  the  one  into 
the  other.  About  the  best  poetry,  and  not  only  the  best, 
there  floats  an  atmosphere  of  infinite  suggestion.  The 
poet  speaks  to  us  of  one  thing,  but  in  this  one  thing  there  lo 
seems  to  lurk  the  secret  of  all.  He  said  what  he  meant, 
but  his  meaning  seems  to  beckon  away  beyond  itself,  or 
rather  to  expand  into  something  boundless,  which  is  only 
focussed  in  it;  something  also  which,  we  feel,  would  satisfy 
not  only  the  imagination,  but  the  whole  of  us;  that  some-is 
thing  within  us,  and  without,  which  everywhere 


makes  us  seem 
To  patch  up  fragments  of  a  dream, 
Part  of  which  comes  true,  and  part 
Beats  and  trembles  in  the  heart. 


Those  who  are  susceptible  to  this  effect  of  poetry  find  it 
not  only,  perhaps  not  most,  in  the  ideals  which  she  has 
sometimes  described,  but  in  a  child's  song  by  Christina 
Rossetti  about  a  mere  crown  of  wind-flowers,  and  in  tragedies 
like  Lear,  where  the  sun  seems  to  have  set  for  ever.  They  25 
hear  this  spirit  murmuring  its  undertone  through  the  Aeneid, 
and  catch  its  voice  in  the  song  of  Keats's  nightingale,  and  its 
light  upon  the  figures  on  the  Urn,  and  it  pierces  them  no 
less  in  Shelley's  hopeless  lament,  0  world,  0  life,  0  time, 
than  in  the  rapturous  ecstasy  of  his  Life  of  Life.  This  30 
all-embracing  perfection  cannot  be  expressed  in  poetic  words 
or  words  of  any  kind,  nor  yet  in  music  or  in  colour,,  but 
the  suggestion  of  it  is  in  much  poetry,  if  not  all,  and  poetry 
has  in  this  suggestion,  this  "  meaning,"  a  great  part  of  its 


410  A.  C.  BRADLEY 

value.  We  do  it  wrong,  and  we  defeat  our  own  purposes 
when  we  try  to  bend  it  to  them : 

We  do  it  wrong,  being  so  majestical, 
To  offer  it  the  show  of  violence; 
I  For  it  is  as  the  air  invulnerable, 

And  our  vain  blows  malicious  mockery. 

It  is  a  spirit.  It  comes  we  know  not  whence.  It  will  not 
speak  at  our  bidding,  nor  answer  in  our  language.  It  is 
not  our  servant;  it  is  our  master. 


GREEK  TRAGEDY i 

G.  Lowes  Dickinson 

The  character  of  Greek  tragedy  was  determined  from  the 
very  beginning  by  the  fact  of  its  connection  with  religion. 
The  season  at  which  it  was  performed  was  the  festival  of 
Dionysus;  about  his  altar  the  chorus  danced;  and  the  object 
of  the  performance  was  the  representation  of  scenes  out  of  s 
the  Hves  of  ancient  heroes.  Tlie  subject  of  the  drama  was 
thus  strictly  prescribed;  it  must  be  selected  out  of  a  cycle 
of  legends  familiar  to  the  audience;  and  whatever  freedom 
might  be  allowed  to  the  poet  in  his  treatment  of  the  theme, 
whatever  the  reflections  he  might  embroider  upon  it,  the  lo 
speculative  or  ethical  views,  the  criticism  of  contemporary 
life,  all  must  be  subservient  to  the  main  object  originally 
proposed,  the  setting  forth,  for  edilication  as  well  as  for 
delight,  of  some  episodes  in  the  lives  of  those  heroes  of  the 
past  who  were  considered  not  only  to  be  greater  than  their  15 
descendants,  but  to  be  the  sons  of  gods  and  worthy  them- 
selves of  worship  as  di\ine. 

By  this  fundamental  condition  the  tragedy  of  the  Greeks 
is  distinguished  sharply,  on  the  one  hand  from  the  Shake- 
spearian drama,  on  the  other  from  the  classical  drama  of  20 
the  French.  The  tragedies  of  Shakespeare  are  devoid, 
one  might  say,  or  at  least  comparatively  devoid,  of  all 
preconceptions.  He  was  free  to  choose  what  subject  he 
liked  and  to  treat  it  as  he  would;  and  no  sense  of  obligation 
to  religious  or  other  points  of  view,  no  feeling  for  traditions  25 
descended  from  a  sacred  past  and  not  lightly  to  be  handled 
by  those  who  were  their  trustees  for  the  future,  sobered 

1  From  "  The  Greek  \'ie\v  of  Life,"  1909  (sixth  edition).      By  permis- 
sion of  Messrs.  Doubieday,  Page  &  Co. 

411 


412  G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 

or  restrained  for  evil  or  for  good  his  half-barbaric  genius. 
He  flung  himself  upon  Ufe  with  the  irresponsible  ardour 
of  the  discoverer  of  a  new  continent;  shaped  and  re-shaped 
it  as  he  chose;  carved  from  it  now  the  cynicism  of  Measure 
sfor  Measure,  now  the  despair  of  Hamlet  and  of  Lear,  now 
the  radiant  magnanimity  of  The  Tempest,  and  departed 
leaving  behind  him  not  a  map  or  chart,  but  a  series  of 
mutually  incompatible  landscapes. 
What  Shakespeare  gave,  in  short,  was  a  many-sided  repre- 

losentation  of  life;  what  the  Greek  dramatist  gave  was  an 
interpretation.  But  an  interpretation  not  simply  personal 
to  himself,  but  representative  of  the  national  tradition  and 
belief.  The  men  whose  deeds  and  passions  he  narrated  were 
the  patterns  and  examples  on  the  one  hand,  on  the  other 

15  the  warnings  of  his  race;  the  gods  who  determined  the 
fortunes  they  sang,  were  working  still  among  men;  the 
moral  laws  that  ruled  the  past  ruled  the  present  too;  and 
the  history  of  the  Hellenic  race  moved,  under  a  visible 
providence,  from  its  divine  origin  onward  to  an  end  that 

20  would  be  prosperous  or  the  reverse  according  as  later  gen- 
erations should  continue  to  observe  the  worship  and  tradi- 
tions of  their  fathers  descended  from  heroes  and  gods. 

And  it  is  the  fact  that  in  this  sense  it  was  representative 
of  the  national  consciousness,  that  distinguishes  the  Greek 

25  tragedy  from  the  classical  drama  of  the  French.  For  the 
latter,  though  it  imitated  the  ancients  in  outward  form, 
was  inspired  with  a  totally  different  spirit.  The  kings  and 
heroes  whose  fortunes  it  narrated  were  not  the  ancestors 
of  the  French  race;    they  had  no  root  in  its  affections,  no 

30  connection  with  its  religious  beliefs,  no  relation  to  its 
ethical  conceptions.  The  whole  ideal  set  forth  was  not 
that  which  really  inspired  the  nation,  but  at  best  that  which 
was  supposed  to  inspire  the  court;  and  the  whole  drama, 
like  a  tree  transplanted  to  an  alien  soil,  withers  and  dies 

35  for  lack  of  the  nourishment  which  the  tragedy  of  the  Greeks 
unconsciously  imbibed  from  its  encompassing  air  of  national 
tradition. 


GREEK   TRAGEDY  413 

Such  then  was  the  general  character  of  the  Greek  tragedy 
— an  interpretation  of  the  national  ideal.  Let  us  now  pro- 
ceed to  follow  out  some  of  the  consequences  involved  in 
this  conception. 

In  the  first  place,  the  theme  represented  is  the  hfe  and   5 
fate  of  ancient  heroes — of  personages,  that  is  to  say,  greater 
than  ordinary  men,  both  for  good  and  for  evil,  in  their 
qualities  and  in  their  achievements,  pregnant  with  fateful 
issues,   makers  or  marrers  of   the  fortunes  of  the  world. 
Tragic  and  terrible  their  destiny  may  be,  but  never  contempt!- 10 
ble  or  squahd.     Behind  all  suffering,  behind  sin  and  crime, 
must  lie  redeeming  magnanimity.     A  complete  villain,  says 
Aristotle,  is  not  a  tragic  character,  for  he  has  no  hold  upon 
the  sympathies;   if  he  prosper,  it  is  an  outrage  on  common 
human  feeling;   if  he  fall  into  disaster,  it  is  merely  what  he  15 
deserves.     Neither  is  it  admissible  to  represent  the  mis- 
fortunes of  a  thoroughly  good  man,  for  that  is  merely  pain- 
ful and  distressing;  and  least  of  all  is  it  tolerable  gratuitously 
to  introduce  mere  baseness,  or  madness,  or  other  aberrations 
from  human  nature.     The  true  tragic  hero  is  a  man  of  high  20 
place  and  birth  who  haA-ing  a  nature  not  ignoble  has  fallen 
into  sin  and  pays  in  suffering  the  penalty  of  his  act.     Noth- 
ing  could    throw    more    light   on    the   distinguishing   char- 
acteristics of  the  Greek  drama  than  these  few  remarks  of 
Aristotle,  and  nothing  could  better  indicate  how  close,  in  25 
the  Greek  mind,  was  the  connection  between  aesthetic  and 
ethical  judgments.     The  canon  of  Aristotle  would  exclude 
as  proper  themes  for  tragedy  the  character  and  fate,  say,  of 
Richard  III — the  absolutely  bad  man  suffering  his  appro- 
priate  desert;     or   of   Kent   and    Cordelia — the   absolutely 30 
good,  brought  into  unmerited  affliction;  and  that  not  merely 
because  such  themes  offend  the  moral  sense,  but  because 
by  so  offending  they  destroy  the  proper  pleasure  of  the 
tragic  art.     The  whole  esthetic  effect  is  Umited  by  ethical 
presuppositions;   and  to  outrage  these  is  to  defeat  the  very  35 
purpose  of  tragedy. 

Specially  interesting  in  this  connection  are  the  strictures 


411  G.   LOWES  DICKINSON 

passed  on  Euripides  in  the  passage  of  the  Frogs  of 
Aristophanes  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made. 
Euripides  is  there  accused  of  lowering  the  tragic  art  by 
introducing — what?  Women  in  love!  The  central  theme 
5  of  modern  tragedy!  It  is  the  boast  of  ^Eschylus  that  there 
is  not  one  of  his  plays  wliich  touches  on  this  subject: 

"  I  never  allow'd  of  your  lewd  Sthenoboeas 
Or  filthy  detestable  Phiedras — not  I ! 
Indeed  I  should  doubt  if  my  drama  throughout 
lo  Exhibit  an  instance  of  woman  in  love!  "  ^ 

And  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  with  a  Greek  audience 
this  would  count  to  him  as  a  merit,  and  that  the  shifting  of 
the  centre  of  interest  by  Euripides  from  the  sterner  passions 
of  heroes  and  of  kings  to  this  tenderer  phase  of  human  feel- 

ising  would  be  felt  even  by  those  whom  it  charmed  to  be  a 
declension  from  the  height  of  the  older  tragedy. 

And  to  this  limitation  of  subject  corresponds  a  limitation 
of  treatment.  The  Greek  tragedy  is  composed  from  a 
definite  point  of  view,  with  the  aim  not  merely  to  represent 

20  but  also  to  interpret  the  theme.  Underlying  the  whole 
construction  of  the  plot,  the  dialogue,  the  reflections,  the 
lyric  interludes,  is  the  intention  to  illustrate  some  general 
moral  law,  some  common  and  typical  problem,  some  funda- 
mental truth.     Of  the  elder  dramatists  at  any  rate,  ^schylus 

25  and  Sophocles,  one  may  even  say  that  it  was  their  purpose — 
however  imperfectly  achieved — to  "  justify  the  ways  of 
God  to  man."  To  represent  suffering  as  the  punishment 
of  sin  is  the  constant  bent  of  y^schylus;  to  justify  the  law 
of  God  against  the  presumption  of  man  is  the  central  idea 

30  of  Sophocles.  In  either  case  the  whole  tone  is  essentially 
religious.  To  choose  such  a  theme  as  Lear,  to  treat  it  as 
Shakespeare  has  treated  it,  to  leave  it,  as  it  were,  bleeding 
from  a  thousand  wounds,  in  mute  and  helpless  entreaty 
for  the  healing  that  is  never  to  be  vouchsafed — this  would 

35  have  been  repulsive,  if  not  impossible,  to  a  Greek  tragedian. 

1  From  Aristophanes'  "  Frogs,"  1.  1043.     Translated  by  Frere. 


GREEK  TRAGEDY  415 

Without  ever  descending  from  concrete  art  to  the  abstrac- 
tions of  mere  moralising,  without  ever  attempting  to  sub- 
stitute a  verbal  formula  for  the  full  and  comi)lex  perception 
that  grows  out  of  a  representation  of  life,  the  ancient  drama- 
tists were  nevertheless,  in  the  whole  ai)prehension  of  their  5 
theme,  determined  by  a  more  or  less  conscious  speculative 
bias;  the  world  to  them  was  not  merely  a  splendid  chaos, 
it  was  a  divine  plan;  and  even  in  its  darkest  hollows,  its 
passes  most  perilous  and  bleak,  they  have  their  hand,  though 
doubtful  perhaps  and  faltering,  upon  the  clue  that  is  to  lead  10 
them  up  to  the  open  sky. 

It  is  consonant  with  this  account  of  the  nature  of  Greek 
tragedy  that  it  should  have  laid  more  stress  upon  action 
than  upon  character.  The  interest  was  centred  on  the 
universal  bearing  of  certain  acts  and  situations,  on  the  light  15 
which  the  experience  represented  threw  on  the  whole  ten- 
dency and  course  of  human  life,  not  on  the  sentiments  and 
motives  of  the  particular  personages  introduced.  The 
characters  arc  broad  and  simple,  not  developing  for  the 
most  part,  but  fixed,  and  fitted  therefore  to  be  the  mediums  20 
of  direct  action,  of  simple  issues,  and  typical  situations. 
In  the  Greek  tragedy  the  general  point  of  view  predomi- 
nates over  the  idiosyncrasies  of  particular  persons.  It 
is  human  nature  that  is  represented  in  the  broad,  not 
this  or  that  highly  specialised  variation;  and  what  we 25 
have  indicated  as  the  general  aim,  the  interpretation  of 
life,  is  never  obscured  by  the  predominance  of  excep- 
tional and  so  to  speak,  accidental  characteristics.  Man  is 
the  subject  of  the  Greek  drama;  the  subject  of  the  modern 
novel  is  Tom  and  Dick.  30 

Finally,  to  the  realisation  of  this  general  aim,  the  whole 
form  of  the  Greek  drama  was  admirably  adapted.  It 
consisted  very  largely  of  conversations  between  two  persons, 
representing  two  opposed  ])oints  of  view,  and  gi\ing  occasion 
for  an  almost  scientific  discussion  of  every  problem  of  action  35 
raised  in  the  play;  and  between  these  conversations  were 
inserted  lyric  odes  in  which  the  chorus  commented  on  the 


416  G.   LOWES  DICKINSON 

situation,  bestowed  advice  or  warning,  praise  or  blame,  and 
finally  summed  up  the  moral  of  the  whole.  Through  the 
chorus,  in  fact,  the  poet  could  speak  in  his  own  person,  and 
impose  upon  the  whole  tragedy  any  tone  which  he  desired. 
S  Periodically  he  could  drop  the  dramatist  and  assume  the 
preacher;  and  thus  ensure  that  his  play  should  be,  what 
we  have  seen  was  its  recognised  ideal,  not  merely  a  repre- 
sentation but  an  interpretation  of  life. 

But  this  without  ceasing  to  be  a  work  of  art.     In  attempt- 

lo  ing  to  analyse  in  abstract  terms  the  general  character  of  the 
Greek  tragedy  we  have  necessarily  thrown  into  the  shade 
what  after  all  was  its  primary  and  most  essential  aspect; 
an  aspect,  however,  of  which  a  full  appreciation  could  only 
be  attained  not  by  a  mere  perusal  of  the  test,  but  by  what  is 

IS  unfortunately  for  ever  beyond  our  power,  the  witnessing 
of  an  actual  representation  as  it  was  given  on  the  Greek 
stage.  For  from  a  purely  aesthetic  point  of  view  the  Greek 
drama  must  be  reckoned  among  the  most  perfect  of  art 
forms. 

20  Taking  place  in  the  open  air,  on  the  sunny  slope  of  a  hill, 
valley  and  plain  or  islanded  sea  stretching  away  below  to 
meet  the  blazing  blue  of  a  cloudless  sky,  the  moving  pageant, 
thus  from  the  first  set  in  tune  with  nature,  brought  to  a 
focus  of  splendour  the  rays  of  every  separate  art.     More 

25  akin  to  an  opera  than  to  a  play  it  had,  as  its  basis,  music. 
For  the  drama  had  developed  out  of  the  lyric  ode,  and 
retained  throughout  what  was  at  first  its  only  element, 
the  dance  and  song  of  a  mimetic  chorus.  By  this  centre 
of  rhythmic  motion  and  pregnant  melody  the  burden  of 

30  the  tale  was  caught  up  and  echoed  and  echoed  again,  as  the 
living  globe  divided  into  spheres  of  answering  song,  the 
clear  and  precise  significance  of  the  plot,  never  obscure  to 
the  head,  being  thus  brought  home  in  music  to  the  passion 
of  the  heart,  the  idea  embodied  in  lyric  verse,  the  verse 

35  transfigured  by  song,  and  song  and  verse  reflected  as  in  a 
mirror  to  the  eye  by  the  swing  and  beat  of  the  limbs  they 
stirred  to  consonance  of  motion.     And  while  such  was  the 


GREEK  TRAGEDY  417 

character  of  the  odes  that  broke  the  action  of  the  play,  the 
action  itself  was  an  appeal  not  less  to  the  ear  and  to  the  eye 
than  to  the  passion  and  the  intellect.  The  circumstances 
of  the  representation,  the  huge  auditorium  in  the  open  air, 
lent  themselves  less  to  "  acting  "  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  5 
than  to  attitude  and  declamation.  The  actors  raised  on 
high  boots  above  their  natural  height,  their  faces  hidden 
in  masks  and  their  tones  mechanically  magnified,  must 
have  relied  for  their  effects  not  upon  facial  play,  or  rapid 
and  subtle  variations  of  voice  and  gesture,  but  upon  a  lo 
certain  statuesque  beauty  of  pose,  and  a  chanting  intona- 
tion of  that  majestic  iambic  verse  whose  measure  would 
have  been  obscured  by  a  rapid  and  conversational  delivery. 
The  representation  would  thus  become  moving  sculpture 
to  the  eye,  and  to  the  car,  as  it  were,  a  sleep  of  music  between  is 
the  intenser  interludes  of  the  chorus;  and  the  spectator 
without  being  drawn  away  by  an  imitative  realism  from  the 
calm  of  impassioned  contemplation  into  the  fever  and 
fret  of  a  veritable  actor  on  the  scene,  received  an  impres- 
sion based  throughout  on  that  clear  intellectual  foundation,  20 
that  almost  prosaic  lucidity  of  sentiment  and  plot,  v/hich 
is  preserved  to  us  in  the  written  text,  but  raised  by  the  accom- 
panying appeal  to  the  sense,  made  as  it  must  have  been 
made  by  such  artists  as  the  Greeks,  by  the  grouping  of 
forms  and  colours,  the  recitative,  the  dance  and  the  song,  25 
to  such  a  greatness  and  height  of  aesthetic  significance  as 
can  hardly  have  been  realised  by  any  other  form  of  art 
production. 

The  nearest  modern  analogy  to  what  the  ancient  drama 
must  have  been  is  to  be  found  probably  in  the  operas  of  30 
Wagner,  who  indeed  was  strongly  influenced  by  the  tragedy 
of  the  Greeks.  It  was  his  ideal  like  theirs,  to  combine  the 
various  branches  of  art,  employing  not  only  music  but 
poetry,  sculpture,  painting  and  the  dance,  for  the  representa- 
tion of  his  dramatic  theme ;  and  his  conception  also  to  'make  35 
art  the  interpreter  of  life,  reflecting  in  a  national  drama  the 
national  consciousness,  the  highest  action  and  the  deepest 


418  G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 

passion  and  thought  of  the  German  race.  To  consider 
how  far  in  this  attempt  he  falls  short  of  or  goes  beyond 
the  achievement  of  the  Greeks,  and  to  examine  the  wide 
dissimilarities  that  underlie  the  general  identity  of  aim, 
S  would  be  to  wander  too  far  afield  from  our  present  theme. 
But  the  comparison  may  be  recommended  to  those  who 
are  anxious  to  form  a  concrete  idea  of  what  the  effect  of 
a  Greek  tragedy  may  have  been,  and  to  clothe  in  imagina- 
tion the  dead  bones  of  the  literary  text  with  the  flesh  and 

lo  blood  of  a  representation  to  the  sense. 

Meantime,  to  assist  the  reader  to  realise  with  somewhat 
greater  precision  the  bearing  of  the  foregoing  remarks, 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  give  an  outline  sketch  of  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  of  the  Greek  tragedies,  the  Agamemnon 

15  of  /Eschylus. 

The  hero  of  the  drama  belongs  to  that  heroic  house  whose 
tragic  history  was  among  the  most  terrible  and  the  most 
familiar  to  a  Greek  audience.  Tantalus,  the  founder  of 
the  family,  for  some  offence  against  the  gods,  was  suffering 

20  in  Hades  the  punishment  which  is  christened  by  his  name. 
His  son  Pelops  was  stained  with  the  blood  of  Myrtilus. 
Of  the  two  sons  of  the  next  generation,  Thyestes  seduced 
the  wife  of  his  brother  Atreus;  and  Atreus  in  return  killed 
the  sons  of  Thyestes,  and  made  the  father  unwittingly  eat 

25  the  flesh  of  the  murdered  boys.  Agamemnon,  son  of  Atreus, 
to  propitiate  Artemis,  sacrificed  his  daughter  Iphigenia, 
and  in  revenge  was  murdered  by  Clytemnestra  his  wife. 
And  Clytemnestra  was  killed  by  Orestes,  her  son,  in  atone- 
ment   for    the    death    of    Agamemnon.     For    generations 

30 the  race  had  been  dogged  by  crime  and  punishment;  and 
in  choosing  for  his  theme  the  murder  of  Agamemnon  the 
dramatist  could  assume  in  his  audience  so  close  a  familiar- 
ity with  the  past  history  of  the  House  that  he  could  call 
into  existence  by  an  allusive  word  that  sombre  background 

35  of  woe  to  enhance  the  terrors  of  his  actual  presentation. 
The  figures  he  brought  into  vivid  relief  joined  hands  with 
menacing  forms  that  faded  away  into  the  night  of  the  future 


GREEK  TRAGEDY  419 

and  the  past;    while  above  them  hung,  intoning  doom,  the 
phantom  host  of  Furies. 

Yet  at  the  outset  of  the  drama  all  promises  well.  The 
watchman  on  the  roof  of  the  palace,  in  the  tenth  year  of  his 
watch,  catches  sight  at  last  of  the  signal  lire  that  announces  5 
the  capture  of  Troy  and  the  speedy  return  of  Agamemnon. 
With  joy  he  proclaims  to  the  House  the  long-delayed 
and  welcome  news;  yet  even  in  the  moment  of  exultation 
lets  slip  a  doubtful  phrase  hinting  at  something  behind, 
which  he  dares  not  name,  something  which  may  turn  to  lo 
despair  the  triumph  of  victory.  Hereupon  enter  the  chorus 
of  Argive  elders,  chanting  as  they  move  to  the  measure  of 
a  stately  march.  They  sing  how  ten  years  before  Agamem- 
non and  Menelaus  had  led  forth  the  host  of  Greece,  at  the 
bidding  of  the  7eus  who  protects  hospitality,  to  recovens 
for  Menelaus  Helen  his  wife,  treacherously  stolen  by  Paris. 
Then,  as  they  take  their  places  and  begin  their  rhythmic 
dance,  in  a  strain  of  impassioned  verse  that  is  at  once  a  nar- 
rative and  a  lyric  hymn,  they  tell,  or  rather  present  in  a 
series  of  vivid  images,  flashing  as  by  illumination  of  light-  20 
ning  out  of  a  night  of  veiled  and  sombre  boding,  the  tale  of 
the  deed  that  darkened  the  starting  of  the  host — the  sacri- 
fice of  Iphigenia  to  the  goddess  whose  wrath  was  delaying 
the  fleet  at  Aulis.  In  verse,  in  music,  in  pantomime,  the 
scene  lives  again — the  struggle  in  the  father's  heart,  the  25 
insistence  of  his  brother  chiefs,  the  piteous  glance  of  the  girl, 
and  at  last  the  unutterable  end;  while  above  and  through 
it  all  rings  like  a  knell  of  fate  the  refrain  that  is  the  motive 
of  the  whole  drama: 

"  Sing  woe,  sing  woe,  but  ma}'  the  Good  prevail."  30 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  ode  enters  Clytemnestra.  She 
makes  a  formal  announcement  to  the  chorus  of  the  fall  of 
Troy;  describes  the  course  of  the  signal-fire  from  beacon 
to  beacon  as  it  sped,  and  pictures  in  imagination  the  s(jenes 
even  then  taking  place  in  the  doomed  city.  On  her  with- 35 
drawal  the  chorus  break  once  more  into  song  and  dance. 


420  G.  LOWES  DICKINSON 

To  the  music  of  a  solemn  hymn  they  point  the  moral  of  the 
fall  of  Troy,  the  certain  doom  of  violence  and  fraud  descended 
upon  Paris  and  his  House.  Once  more  the  \ivid  pictures 
flash  from  the  night  of  woe — Helen  in  her  fatal  beauty 
5  stepping  lightly  to  her  doom,  the  widower's  nights  of  mourn- 
ing haunted  by  the  ghost  of  love,  the  horrors  of  the  war 
that  followed,  the  slain  abroad  and  the  mourners  at  home, 
the  change  of  living  flesh  and  blood  for  the  dust  and  ashes 
of  the  tomb.     At  last  with  a  return  to  their  original  theme, 

lo  the  doom  of  insolence,  the  chorus  close  their  ode  and  announce 
the  arrival  of  a  messenger  from  Troy.  Talthybius,  the 
herald,  enters  as  spokesman  of  the  army  and  king,  describ- 
ing the  hardships  they  have  suffered  and  the  joy  of  the 
triumphant    issue.     To    him    Clytemnestra    announces,    in 

15  words  of  which  the  irony  is  patent  to  the  audience,  her 
sufferings  in  the  absence  of  her  husband  and  her  delight  at 
the  prospect  of  his  return.  He  will  find  her,  she  says,  as 
he  left  her,  a  faithful  watcher  of  the  home,  her  loyalty  sure, 
her  honour  undefiled.     Then    follows  another   choral  ode, 

20  similar  in  theme  to  the  last,  dwelling  on  the  woe  brought  by 
the  act  of  Paris  upon  Troy,  the  change  of  the  bridal  song  to 
the  trump  of  war  and  the  dirge  of  death;  contrasting,  in  a 
profusion  of  splendid  tropes,  the  beauty  of  Helen  with  the 
curse  to  which  it  is  bound;   and  insisting  once  more  on  the 

25  doom  that  attends  insolence  and  pride.  At  the  conclusion 
of  this  song  the  measure  changes  to  a  march,  and  the  chorus 
turn  to  welcome  the  triumphant  king.  Agamemnon  enters, 
and  behind  him  the  veiled  and  silent  figure  of  a  woman. 
After  greeting  the  gods  of  his  House,  the  King,  in  brief  and 

30  stilted  phrase,  acknowledges  the  loyalty  of  the  chorus,  but 
hints  at  much  that  is  amiss  which  it  must  be  his  first  charge 
to  set  right.  Hereupon  enters  Clytemnestra,  and  in  a 
speech  of  rhetorical  exaggeration  tells  of  her  anxious  waiting 
for  her  lord  and  her  inexpressible  joy  at  his  return.     In 

35  conclusion  she  directs  that  purple  cloth  be  spread  upon  his 
path  that  he  may  enter  the  house  as  befits  a  conqueror. 
After  a  show  of  resistance,  Agamemnon  yields  the  point, 


GREEK  TRAGEDY  421 

and  the  contrast  at  which  the  dramatist  aims  is  achieved. 
With  the  pomp  of  an  eastern  monarch,  always  repellent  to 
the  Greek  mind,  the  King  steps  across  the  threshold,  steps, 
as  the  audience  knows,  to  his  death.  The  higher  the  reach 
of  his  power  and  pride  the  more  terrible  and  swift  is  the  5 
nemesis;  and  Clytemncstra  follows  in  triumph  with  the 
enigmatic  cry  upon  her  lips:  "  Zeus  who  art  god  of  fulfilment, 
fulfil  my  prayers."  As  she  withdraws  the  chorus  begin  a 
song  of  boding  fear,  the  more  terrible  that  it  is  still  indefinite. 
Something  is  going  to  happen — the  presentiment  is  sure.  10 
But  what,  but  what?  They  search  the  night  in  vain. 
Meantime,  motionless  and  silent  waits  the  figure  of  the 
veiled  woman.  It  is  Cassandra,  the  prophetess,  daughter 
of  Priam  of  Troy,  whom  Agamemnon  has  carried  home  as 
his  prize.  Clytemnestra  returns  to  urge  her  to  enter  the  15 
house;  she  makes  no  sign  and  utters  no  word.  The  queen 
changes  her  tone  from  courtesy  to  anger  and  rebuke;  the 
figure  neither  stirs  nor  speaks;  and  Clytemnestra  at  last 
with  an  angry  threat  leaves  her  and  returns  to  the  palace. 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  a  cry  breaks  from  the  stranger's  20 
lips,  a  passionate  cry  to  Apollo  who  gave  her  her  fatal  gift. 
All  the  sombre  history  of  the  House  to  which  she  has  been 
brought,  the  woe  that  has  been  and  the  woe  that  is  to  come, 
passes  in  pictures  across  her  inner  sense.  In  a  series  of 
broken  ejaculations,  not  sentences  but  lyric  cries,  she  evokes  25 
the  scenes  of  the  past  and  of  the  future.  Blood  drips  from 
the  palace;  in  its  chambers  the  Furies  crouch;  the  murdered 
sons  of  Thyestes  wail  in  its  haunted  courts;  and  ever  among 
the  visions  of  the  past  that  one  of  the  future  floats  and  fades, 
clearly  discerned,  impossible  to  avert,  the  murder  of  a  hus-  30 
band  by  a  wife;  and  in  the  rear  of  that,  most  pitiful  of  all, 
the  violent  death  of  the  seer  who  sees  in  vain  and  may  not 
help.  Between  Cassandra  and  the  Chorus  it  is  a  duet  of 
anguish  and  fear;  in  the  broken  lyric  phrases  a  phantom 
music  wails;  till  at  last,  at  what  seems  the  breaking-point,  35 
the  tension  is  relaxed,  and  dropping  into  the  calmer  iambic 
recitative,   Cass.indra   tells   her  message  in   plainer   speech 


422  G.   LOWES  DICKINSON 

and  clearly  proclaims  the  murder  of  the  King.  Then,  with 
a  last  appeal  to  the  avenger  that  is  to  come,  she  enters  the 
palace  alone  to  meet  her  death. — The  stage  is  empty  Sud- 
denly a  cry  is  heard  from  within;  again,  and  then  again; 
5  while  the  chorus  hesitate  the  deed  is  done;  the  doors  are 
thrown  open,  and  Clytemnestra  is  seen  standing  over  the 
corpses  of  her  victims.  All  disguise  is  now  thrown  off; 
the  murderess  avows  and  triumphs  in  her  deed;  she  justifies 
it  as  vengeance  for  the  sacrifice  of  Iphigenia,  and  sees  in 

lo  herself  not  a  free  human  agent  but  the  incarnate  curse  of 
the  House  of  Tantalus.  And  now  for  the  first  time  appears 
the  adulterer  ^^^^gisthus,  who  has  planned  the  whole  behind 
the  scenes.  He  too  is  an  avenger,  for  he  is  the  son  of  that 
Thyestes  who  was  made  to  feed  on  his  own  children's  flesh. 

IS  The  murder  of  Agamemnon  is  but  one  more  link  in  the  long 
chain  of  hereditary  guilt;  and  with  that  exposition  of  the 
pitiless  law  of  punishment  and  crime  this  chapter  of  the 
great  drama  comes  to  a  close.  But  the  Agamemnon  is 
only  the  first  of  a  series  of  three  plays  closely  connected 

20 and  meant  to  be  performed  in  succession;  and  the  problem 
raised  in  the  first  of  them,  the  crime  that  cries  for  punish- 
ment and  the  punishment  that  is  itself  a  new  crime,  is  solved 
in  the  last  by  a  reconciliation  of  the  powers  of  heaven  and 
hell,  and  the  pardon  of  the  last  offender  in  the  person  of 

25  Orestes.  To  sketch,  however,  the  plan  of  the  other  dramas 
of  the  trilogy  would  be  to  trespass  too  far  upon  our  space 
and  time.  It  is  enough  to  have  illustrated,  by  the  example 
of  the  Agamemnon,  the  general  character  of  a  Greek 
tragedy;    and  those  who  care  to  pursue  the  subject  further 

30  must  be  referred  to  the  text  of  the  plays  themselves. 


SHAKESPEARE  i 

Thomas  Carlyle 

As  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our  world  to 
embody  musically  the  Religion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Religion  of  our  Modern  Europe,  its  Inner  Life;  so  Shakes- 
peare, we  may  say,  embodies  for  us  the  Outer  Life  of  our 
Europe  as  developed  then,  its  chivalries,  courtesies,  humours,  5 
ambitions,  what  practical  way  of  thinking,  acting,  looking 
at  the  world,  men  then  had.  As  in  Homer  we  may  still 
construe  Old  Greece;  so  in  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  after 
thousands  of  years,  what  our  modern  Europe  was,  in  Faith 
and  in  Practice,  will  still  be  legible.  Dante  has  given  us  10 
the  Faith  or  soul;  Shakespeare,  in  a  not  less  noble  way, 
has  given  us  the  Practice  or  body.  This  latter  also  we 
were  to  have;  a  man  was  sent  for  it,  the  man  Shakespeare. 
Just  when  that  chivalry  way  of  hfe  had  reached  its  last 
finish,  and  was  on  the  point  of  breaking  down  into  slow  or  15 
swift  dissolution,  as  we  now  see  it  everywhere,  this  other 
sovereign  Poet,  with  his  seeing  eye,  with  his  perennial 
singmg  voice,  was  sent  to  take  note  of  it,  to  give  long-endur- 
ing record  of  it.  Two  fit  men :  Dante,  deep,  fierce  as  the 
central  tire  of  the  world;  Shakespeare,  wide,  placid,  far- 20 
seeing,  as  the  Sun,  the  upper  fight  of  the  world.  Italy  pro- 
duced the  one  world- voice;  we  Engfish  had  the  honour  of 
producing  the  other. 

Curious    enough  how,  as  it  were   by  mere  accident,  this 
man  came  to  us.     I  think  always,  so  great,  quiet,  complete  25 
and  self-suflicing  is  this  Shakespeare,  had  the  Warwickshire 

1  From  LccLurc  III,  "  The  Hero  as  Pocl,"  in  "  Heroes  and  Hero- 
Worship,"  1841. 

423 


424  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

Squire  not  prosecuted  him  for  deer-stealing,  we  had  perhaps 
never  heard  of  him  as  a  Poet!  The  woods  and  skies,  the 
rustic  Life  of  Man  in  Stratford  there,  had  been  enough 
for  this  man!  But  indeed  that  strange  outbudding  of  our 
5  whole  English  Existence,  which  we  call  the  Elizabethan 
Era,  did  not  it  too  come  as  of  its  own  accord?  The  "  Tree 
Igdrasil  "  buds  and  withers  by  its  own  laws, — too  deep  for 
our  scanning.  Yet  it  does  bud  and  wither,  and  every  bough 
and  leaf  of  it  is  there,  by  fixed  eternal  laws;  not  a  Sir  Thomas 

loLucy  but  comes  at  the  hour  fit  for  him.  Curious,  I  say, 
and  not  sufficiently  considered:  how  everything  does 
co-operate  with  all;  not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  highway  but 
is  indissoluble  portion  of  solar  and  stellar  systems;  no 
thought,  word  or  act  of  man  but  has  sprung  withal  out  of 

IS  all  men,  and  works  sooner  or  later,  recognisably  or  irrec- 
ognisably,  on  all  men!  It  is  all  a  Tree:  circulation  of  sap 
and  influences,  mutual  communication  of  every  minutest 
leaf  with  the  lowest  talon  of  a  root,  with  every  other  greatest 
and  minutest  portion   of  the   whole.     The   Tree   Igdrasil, 

20  that  has  its  roots  down  in  the  Kingdoms  of  Hela  and  Death, 
and  whose  boughs  overspread  the  highest  Heaven! 

In  some  sense  it  may  be  said  that  this  glorious  Elizabethan 
Era  with  its  Shakespeare,  as  the  outcome  and  flowerage  of 
all   which   had  preceded   it,   is   itself   attributable   to   the 

25  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Christian  Faith, 
which  was  the  theme  of  Dante's  Song,  had  produced  this 
Practical  Life  which  Shakespeare  was  to  sing.  For  Religion 
then,  as  it  now  and  always  is,  was  the  soul  of  Practice; 
the  primary  vital  fact  in  men's  life.     And  remark  here,  as 

30  rather  curious,  that  Middle-Age  Catholicism  was  aboHshed, 
so  far  as  Acts  of  ParUament  could  abolish  it,  before  Shake- 
speare, the  noblest  product  of  it,  made  his  appearance.  He 
did  make  his  appearance  nevertheless.  Nature  at  her  own 
time,  with  Catholicism  or  what  else  might  be  necessary, 

35  sent  him  forth;  taking  small  thought  of  Acts  of  Parliament. 
King-Henrys,  Queen-Elizabeths  go  their  way;  and  Nature 
too  goes  hers.     Acts  of  Parliament,  on  the  whole,  are  small, 


SHAKESPEARE  425 

notwithstanding  the  noise  they  make.  What  Act  of  Par- 
liament, debate  at  St.  Stephen's,  ^  on  the  hustings  or  else- 
where, was  it  that  brought  this  Shakespeare  into  being? 
No  dining  at  Freemasons'  Tavern,  opening  subscription- 
lists,  selling  of  shares,  and  infinite  other  jangling  and  true  s 
or  false  endeavouring!  This  EUzabethan  Era,  and  all  its 
nobleness  and  blessedness,  came  without  proclamation, 
preparation  of  ours.  Priceless  Shakespeare  was  the  free 
gift  of  Nature;  given  altogether  silently;  received  alto- 
gether silently,  as  if  it  had  been  a  thing  of  little  account.  lo 
And  yet,  very  literally,  it  is  a  priceless  thing.  One  should 
look  at  that  side  of  matters  too. 

Of  this  Shakespeare  of  ours,  perhaps  the  opinion  one  some- 
times hears  a  little  idolatrously  expressed  is,  in  fact,  the  right 
one;    I  think  the  best  judgment  not  of  this  country  only  15 
but  of  Europe  at  large,  is  slowly  pointing  to  the  conclusion. 
That  Shakespeare  is  the  chief  of  all  Poets  hitherto;    the 
greatest    intellect    who,    in    our   recorded    world,  has    left 
record  of  himself  in  the  way  of  Literature.     On  the  whole, 
I  know  not  such  a  power  of  vision,  such  a  faculty  of  thought,  20 
if  we  take  all  the  characters  of  it,  in  any  other  man.     Such 
a  calmness  of  depth;    placid  joyous  strength;    all  things 
imaged  in  that  great  soul  of  his  so  true  and  clear,  as  in  a 
tranquil  unfathomable  sea!    It  has  been  said,  that  in  the 
constructing  of  Shakespeare's  Dramas  there  is,  apart  from  25 
all  other  "  faculties  "  as  they  are  called,  an  understanding 
manifested,    equal    to    that    in    Bacon's   Novum   Organum. 
That  is  true;  and  it  is  not  a  truth  that  strikes  every  one.     It 
would  become  more  apparent  if  we  tried,  any  of  us  for  him- 
self, how,  out  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  materials,  we  could  30 
fashion  such  a  result!     The  built  house  seems  all  so  fit, — 
everyway  as  it  should  be,  as  if  it  came  there  by  its  own  law 
and  the  nature   of  things, — we  forget  the  rude  disorderly 
quarry  it  was  shaj^cd   from.     The  very  perfection   of  the 
house,  as  if  Nature  herself  had  made  it,  hides  the  buirder's35 
merit.     Perfect,  more  perfect  than  any  other  man,  we  may 
'  St.  Stephen's;  House  of  Commons. 


42G  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

call  Shakespeare  in  this:  he  discerns,  knows  as  by  instinct, 
what  condition  he  works  under,  what  his  materials  are, 
what  his  own  force  and  its  relation  to  them  is.  It  is  not  a 
transitory  glance  of  insight  that  will  suffice;   it  is  deliberate 

5  illumination  of  the  whole  matter;  it  is  a  calmly  seeing  eye; 
a  great  intellect,  in  short.  How  a  man,  of  some  wide 
thing  that  he  has  witnessed,  will  construct  a  narrative, 
what  kind  of  picture  and  delineation  he  will  give  of  it — 
is  the  best  measure  you  could  get  of  what  intellect  is  in  the 

loman.  Which  circumstance  is  vital  and  shall  stand  prom- 
inent; which  unessential,  fit  to  be  suppressed;  where  is 
the  true  beginning,  the  true  sequence  and  ending?  To  find 
out  this,  you  task  the  whole  force  of  insight  that  is  in  the 
man.     He  must  understand  the   thing;    according   to   the 

15  depth  of  his  understanding,  will  the  fitness  of  his  answer 
be.  You  will  try  him  so.  Does  like  join  itself  to  Hke;  does 
the  spirit  of  method  stir  in  that  confusion,  so  that  its 
embroilment  becomes  order?  Can  the  man  say.  Fiat  lux, 
Let  there  be  Hght;    and  out  of  chaos  make  a  world?    Pre- 

20  cisely  as  there  is  light  in  himself,  will  he  accomplish  this. 
Or  indeed  we  may  say  again,  it  is  in  what  I  called  Portrait- 
painting,  dehneating  of  men  and  things,  especially  of  men, 
that  Shakespeare   is  great.     All  the  greatness  of  the  man 
comes  out  decisively  here.     It  is  unexampled,  I  think,  that 

25  calm  creative  perspicacity  of  Shakespeare.  The  thing  he 
looks  at  reveals  not  this  or  that  face  of  it,  but  its  inmost 
heart,  and  generic  secret:  it  dissolves  itself  as  in  light  before 
him,  so  that  he  discerns  the  perfect  structure  of  it.  Creative, 
we  said:  poetic  creation,  what  is  this  too  but  seeing  the  thing 

^o  sufficiently?  The  word  that  will  describe  the  thing,  follows 
of  itself  from  such  clear  intense  sight  of  the  thing.  And 
is  not  Shakespeare's  morality,  his  valour,  candour,  tolerance, 
truthfulness;  his  whole  victorious  strength  and  greatness, 
which  can  triumph  over  such  obstructions,  visible  there  too? 

35  Great  as  the  world !  No  twisted,  poor  convex-concave 
mirror,  reflecting  all  objects  with  its  own  convexities  and 
concavities;   a  perfectly  level  mirror — that  is  to  say  withal, 


SHAKESPEARE  427 

if  we  will  understand  it,  a  man  justly  related  to  all  things 
and  men,  a  good  man.  It  is  truly  a  lordly  spectacle  how 
this  great  soul  takes-in  all  kinds  of  men  and  objects,  a  Fal- 
staff,  an  Othello,  a  Juliet,  a  Coriolanus;  sets  them  all  forth 
to  us  in  their  round  completeness;  loving,  just,  the  equal  5 
brother  of  all.  Novum  Organiim,  and  all  the  intellect  you 
will  lind  in  Bacon,  is  of  a  quite  secondary  order;  earthy, 
material,  poor  in  comparison  with  this.  Among  modern 
men,  one  finds,  in  strictness,  almost  othing  of  the  same  rank. 
Goethe  alone,  since  the  days  of  Shakespeare,  reminds  me  10 
of  it.  Of  him  too  you  say  that  he  saw  the  object;  you  may 
say  what  he  himself  says  of  Shakesi)eare:  "  His  characters 
arc  like  watches  with  dial-plates  of  transparent  crystal; 
they  show  you  the  hour  like  others,  and  the  inward  mechan- 
ism also  is  all  visible.  "  15 

The  seeing  eye!  It  is  this  that  discloses  the  inner  harmony 
of  things;  what  Nature  meant,  what  musical  idea  Nature  has 
wrapped-up  in  these  often  rough  embodiments.  Something 
she  did  mean.  To  the  seeing  eye  that  something  were 
discernible.  Are  they  base,  miserable  things?  You  can  20 
laugh  over  them,  you  can  weep  over  them;  you  can  in  some 
way  or  other  genially  relate  yourself  to  them — you  can,  at 
lowest,  hold  your  peace  about  them,  turn  away  your  own 
and  others'  face  from  them,  till  the  hour  come  for  practically 
exterminating  and  extinguishing  them!  At  bottom,  it  is  the  25 
Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's,  that  he  have  intellect  enough. 
He  will  be  a  Poet  if  he  have:  a  Poet  in  word;  or  failing  that, 
perhaps  still  better,  a  Poet  in  act.  Whether  he  write  at  all, 
and  if  so,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse,  will  depend  on 
accidents:  who  knows  on  what  extremely  trivial  accidents, —  30 
perhaps  on  his  having  had  a  singing-master,  on  his  being 
taught  to  sing  in  his  boyhood !  But  the  faculty  which  enables 
him  to  discern  the  inner  heart  of  things,  and  the  harmony 
that  dwells  there  (for  whatsoever  exists  has  a  harmony 
in  the  heart  of  it,  or  it  would  not  hold  together  and  exist),  35 
is  not  the  result  of  habits  or  accidents,  but  the  gift  of  Nature 
herself;   the  primary  outfit  for  a  Heroic  Man  in  what  sort 


428  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

soever.  To  the  Poet,  as  to  every  other,  we  say  first  of  all 
See.  If  you  cannot  do  that,  it  is  of  no  use  to  keep  stringing 
rhymes  together,  jingling  sensibilities  against  each  other, 
and  name  yourself  a  Poet;  there  is  no  hope  for  you.  If 
S  you  can,  there  is,  in  prose  or  verse,  in  action  or  speculation, 
all  manner  of  hope.  The  crabbed  old  Schoolmaster  used  to 
ask,  when  they  brought  him  a  new  pupil,  "  But  are  ye  sure 
he's  not  a  dunce?' ^  Why,  really  one  might  ask  the  same  thing, 
in  regard  to  every  man  proposed  for  whatsoever  function; 

loand  consider  it  as  the  one  inquiry  needful:  Are  ye  sure 
he's  not  a  dunce?  There  is,  in  this  world,  no  other  entirely 
fatal  person. 

For,  in  fact,  I  say  the  degree  of  vision  that  dwells  in  a  man 
is  a  correct  measure  of  the  man.     If  called  to  define  Shake- 

15  speare's  faculty,  I  should  say  superiority  of  Intellect,  and 
think  I  had  included  all  under  that.  What  indeed  are 
faculties?  We  talk  of  faculties  as  if  they  were  distinct, 
things  separable;  as  if  a  man  had  intellect,  imagination, 
fancy,   etc.,  as  he  has  hands,  feet   and  arms.     That  is  a 

20  capital  error.  Then  again,  we  hear  of  a  man's  "  intellectual 
nature,"  and  of  his  "  moral  nature,"  as  if  these  again  were 
divisible,  and  existed  apart.  Necessities  of  language  do 
perhaps  prescribe  such  forms  of  utterance;  we  must  speak,  I 
am  aware,   in  that  way,  if  we  are    to  speak  at  all.      But 

25  words  ought  not  to  harden  into  things  for  us.  It  seems  to 
me,  our  apprehension  of  this  matter  is,  for  most  part,  radi- 
cally falsified  thereby.  We  ought  to  know  withal,  and  to 
keep  forever  in  mind,  that  these  divisions  are  at  bottom  but 
names;    that  man's  spiritual  nature,  the  vital  Force  which 

30 dwells  in  him,  is  essentially  one  and  indivisible;  that  what 
we  call  imagination,  fancy,  understanding,  and  so  forth,  are 
but  different  figures  of  the  same  Power  of  Insight,  all  indis- 
solubly  connected  with  each  other,  physiognomically  related; 
that  if  we  knew  one  of  them,  we  might  know  all  of  them. 

35  Morality  itself,  what  we  call  the  moral  quality  of  a  man, 
what  is  this  but  another  side  of  the  one  vital  Force  whereby 
he  is  and  works?    All  that  a  man  does  is  physiognomical 


SHAKESPEARE  429 

of  him.  You  may  see  how  a  man  would  fight,  by  the  way 
in  which  he  sings;  his  courage,  or  want  of  courage,  is  visible 
in  the  word  he  utters,  in  the  opinion  he  has  formed,  no  less 
than  in  the  stroke  he  strikes.  He  is  one;  and  preaches  the 
same  Self  abroad  in  all  these  ways.  5 

Without  hands  a  man  might  have  feet,  and  could  still 
walk:  but,  consider  it — without  morality,  intellect  were 
impossible  for  him;  a  thoroughly  immoral  man  could  not 
know  anything  at  all!  To  know  a  thing,  what  we  can  call 
knowing,  a  man  must  first  love  the  thing,  sympathise  with  lo 
it:  that  is,  be  virtuously  related  to  it.  If  he  have  not  the 
justice  to  put  down  his  own  selfishness  at  every  turn,  the 
courage  to  stand  by  the  dangerous-true  at  every  turn, 
how  shall  he  know?  His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded 
in  his  knowledge.  Nature,  with  her  truth,  remains  to  the  15 
bad,  to  the  selfish  and  the  pusillanimous  forever  a  sealed 
book:  what  such  can  know  of  Nature  is  mean,  superficial, 
small;  for  the  uses  of  the  day  merely.  But  does  not  the 
very  Fox  know  something  of  Nature?  Exactly  so:  it 
knows  where  the  geese  lodge!  The  human  Reynard,  very 20 
frequent  everywhere  in  the  world,  what  more  does  he  know 
but  this  and  the  like  of  this?  Nay,  it  should  be  considered 
too,  that  if  the  Fox  had  not  a  certain  vulpine  morality,  he 
could  not  even  know  where  the  geese  were,  or  get  at  the 
geese!  If  he  spent  his  time  in  splenetic  atrabiliar  reflec-25 
tions  on  his  own  misery,  his  ill  usage  by  Nature,  Fortune 
and  other  Foxes,  and  so  forth;  and  had  not  courage,  prompt- 
itude, practicality,  and  other  suitable  vulpine  gifts  and  graces, 
he  would  catch  no  geese.  We  may  say  of  the  Fox  too,  that 
his  morality  and  insight  are  of  the  same  dimensions;  dif-30 
ferent  faces  of  the  same  internal  unity  of  vulpine  life! 
These  things  are  worth  stating;  for  the  contrary  of  them 
acts  with  manifold  very  baleful  perversion,  in  this  time: 
what  limitations,  modifications  they  require,  your  own  can- 
dour will  supply.  '  35 

If  I  say,  therefore,  that  Shakespeare  is  the  greatest  of 
Intellects,   I  have  said  all  concerning  him.     But  there  is 


430  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

more  in  Shakespeare's  intellect  than  we  have  yet  seen.  It 
is  what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect;  there  is  more  virtue 
in  it  than  he  himself  is  aware  of.  Novalis  beautifully  remarks 
of  him,  that  those  Dramas  of  his  are  Products  of  Nature  too, 

5  deep  as  Nature  herself.  I  find  a  great  truth  in  this  saying. 
Shakespeare's  Art  is  not  Artifice;  the  noblest  worth  of  it 
is  not  there  by  plan  or  precontrivance.  It  grows-up  from 
the  deeps  of  Nature,  through  this  noble  sincere  soul,  who  is  a 
voice  of  Nature.     The  latest  generations  of  men  will  find 

lonew  meanings  in  Shakespeare,  new  elucidations  of  their 
own  human  being;  "  new  harmonies  with  the  infinite  struc- 
ture of  the  Universe;  concurrences  with  later  ideas,  affin- 
ities with  the  higher  powers  and  senses  of  man."  This 
well  deserves  meditating.     It   is  Nature's  highest   reward 

IS  to  a  true  simple  great  soul,  that  he  get  thus  to  be  a  part 
of  herself.  Such  a  man's  works,  whatsoever  he  with  utmost 
conscious  exertion  and  forethought  shall  accomplish,  grow 
up  withal  zmconsciously,  from  the  unknown  deeps  in  him; — 
as  the  oak-tree  grows  from  the  Earth's  bosom,  as  the  moun- 

20 tains  and  waters  shape  themselves;  with  a  symmetry 
grounded  on  Nature's  own  laws,  conformable  to  all  Truth 
whatsoever.  How  much  in  Shakespeare  lies  hid;  his  sor- 
rows, his  silent  struggles  known  to  himself;  much  that  was 
not  known  at  all,  not  speakable  at  all:  like  roots,  like  sap  and 

25  forces  working  underground!  Speech  is  great;  but  Silence 
is  greater. 

Withal  the  joyful  tranquillity  of  this  man  is  notable.  I 
will  not  blame  Dante  for  his  misery:  it  is  as  battle  without 
victory;     but    true    battle, — the    first,  indispensable  thing. 

30  Yet  I  call  Shakespeare  greater  than  Dante,  in  that  he  fought 
truly,  and  did  conquer.  Doubt  it  not,  he  had  his  own  sor- 
rows: those  Sounds  of  his  will  even  testify  expressly  in  what 
deep  waters  he  had  waded,  and  swum  struggling  for  his 
Ufe — as  what  man  like  him  ever  failed  to  have  to  do?    It 

35  seems  to  me  a  heedless  notion,  our  common  one,  that  he  sat 
like  a  bird  on  the  bough;  and  sang  forth,  free  and  offhand, 
never  knowing  the  troubles  of  other  men.     Not  so;    with 


SHAKEHPKARE  431 

no  man  is  it  so.  How  could  a  man  travel  forward  from 
rustic  deer-poaching  to  such  tragedy-writing,  and  not  fall-in 
with  sorrows  by  the  way?  Or,  still  better,  how  could  a  man 
delineate  a  Hamlet,  a  Coriolanus,  a  Macbeth,  so  many 
suffering  heroic  hearts,  if  his  own  heroic  heart  had  never  5 
suffered? — And  now,  in  contrast  with  all  this,  observe  his 
mirthfulness,  his  genuine  overflowing  love  of  laughter! 
You  would  say,  in  no  point  does  he  exaggerate  but  only  in 
laughter.  Fiery  objurgations,  words  that  pierce  and  burn, 
are  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare;  yet  he  is  always  in  measure  10 
here;  never  what  Johnson  would  remark  as  a  specially 
"  good  hater."  But  his  laughter  seems  to  pour  from  him 
in  floods;  he  heaps  all  manner  of  ridiculous  nicknames  on 
the  butt  he  is  bantering,  tumbles  and  tosses  him  in  all 
sorts  of  horse-play;  you  would  say,  with  his  whole  heart  15 
laughs.  And  then,  if  not  always  the  finest,  it  is  always  a 
genial  laughter.  Not  at  mere  weakness,  at  misery  or  poverty; 
never.  No  man  who  can  laugh,  what  we  call  laughing,  will 
laugh  at  these  things.  It  is  some  poor  character  only 
desiring  to  laugh,  and  have  the  credit  of  wit,  that  does  so.  20 
Laughter  means  sympathy;  good  laughter  is  not  "  the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  the  pot."  Even  at  stupidity  and 
pretension  this  Shakespeare  does  not  laugh  otherwise  than 
genially.  Dogberry  and  Verges  tickle  our  very  hearts; 
and  we  dismiss  them  covered  with  explosions  of  laughter:  25 
but  we  Ukc  the  poor  fellows  only  the  better  for  our  laughing; 
and  hope  they  will  get  on  well  there,  and  continue  Presidents 
of  the  City-watch.  Such  laughter,  like  sunshine  on  the  deep 
sea,  is  very  beautiful  to  me. 

We  have  no  room  to  speak  of  Shakespeare's  indi\idual3o 
works;  though  perhaps  there  is  much  still  waiting  to  be 
said  on  that  head.  Had  we,  for  instance,  all  his  plays 
reviewed  as  Hamlet,  m  Wilhelm  Meistcr,  is!  A  thing  which 
might,  one  day,  l)e  done.  August  Wilhelm  Schlcgel  has  a 
remark  on  his  Historical  Plays,  Henry  Fifth  and  the  others, 35 
which  is  worth  remcmljering.  He  calls  them  a  kind  of 
National  Epic.     Marlborough,  you  recollect,  said,  he  knew 


432  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

no  English  History  but  what  he  had  learned  from  Shake- 
speare. There  are  really,  if  we  look  to  it,  few  as  memorable 
Histories.  The  great  salient  points  are  admirably  seized; 
all  rounds  itself  off,  into  a  kind  of  rhythmic  coherence;   it  is, 

5  as  Schlegel  says,  epic; — as  indeed  all  delineation  by  a  great 
thinker  will  be.  There  are  right  beautiful  things  in  those 
Pieces,  which  indeed  together  form  one  beautiful  thing. 
That  battle  of  Agincourt  strikes  me  as  one  of  the  most 
perfect  things,  in  its  sort,  we  anywhere  have  of  Shakespeare's. 

loThe  description  of  the  two  hosts:  the  wornout,  jaded 
English;  the  dread  hour,  big  with  destiny,  when  the  battle 
shall  begin;  and  then  that  deathless  valour:  "  Ye  good 
yeomen,  whose  limbs  were  made  in  England!"  There  is 
a  noble  Patriotism  in  it — far  other  than  the  "  indifference  " 

15  you  sometimes  hear  ascribed  to  Shakespeare.  A  true 
English  heart  breathes,  calm  and  strong,  through  the  whole 
business;  not  boisterous,  protrusive;  all  the  better  for  that. 
There  is  a  sound  in  it  like  the  ring  of  steel.  This  man  too 
had  a  right  stroke  in  him,  had  it  come  to  that! 

20  But  I  will  say,  of  Shakespeare's  works  generally,  that  we 
have  no  full  impress  of  him  there;  even  as  full  as  we  have  of 
many  men.  His  works  are  so  many  windows,  through 
which  we  see  a  glimpse  of  the  world  that  was  in  him.  All 
his  works  seem,  comparatively  speaking,  cursory,  imperfect, 

25  written  under  cramping  circumstances;  giving  only  here 
and  there  a  note  of  the  full  utterance  of  the  man.  Passages 
there  are  that  come  upon  you  like  splendour  out  of  Heaven ; 
bursts  of  radiance,  illuminating  the  very  heart  of  the  thing: 
you  say,  "  That  is  true,  spoken  once  and  forever;    where- 

30  soever  and  whensoever  there  is  an  open  human  soul,  that 
will  be  recognised  as  true!"  Such  bursts,  however,  make  us 
feel  that  the  surrounding  matter  is  not  radiant;  that  it  is  in 
part,  temporary,  conventional.  Alas,  Shakespeare  had  to  write 
for  the  Globe  Playhouse:  his  great  soul  had  to  crush  itself,  as 

35  it  could,  into  that  and  no  other  mould.  It  was  with  him,  then, 
as  it  is  with  us  all.  No  man  works  save  under  conditions. 
The  sculptor  cannot   set  his  own  free  Thought  before  us; 


SHAKESPEARE  433 

but  his  Thought  as  he  could  translate  it  into  the  stone  that 
was  given,  with  the  tools  that  were  given.  Disjecta  mem- 
bra ^  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  Poet,  or  of  any  man. 

Whoever    looks    intelligently    at    this    Shakespeare    may 
recognise  that  he  too  was  a  Prophet,  in  his  way ;  of  an  insight   5 
analogous  to  the  Prophetic,  though  he  took  it  up  in  another 
strain.     Nature  seemed  to  this  man  also  divine;  ««speakable, 
deep  as  Tophet,  high  as  Heaven:    "We  are  such  stuff  as 
Dreams  are  made  of!"     That  scroll  in  Westminster  Abbey ,2 
which  few  read  with  understanding,  is  of  the  depth  of  any  10 
seer.     But  the  man  sang;   did  not  preach,  except  musically. 
We  called  Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of  Middle-Age  Catholi- 
cism.    May  we  not  call  Shakespeare  the  still  more  melodious 
Priest  of  a  true  Catholicism,  the  "  Universal  Church  "  of  the 
Future  and  of  all   times?    No   narrow  superstition,  harsh  15 
asceticism,   intolerance,  fanatical   fierceness  or   perversion: 
a  Revelation,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  such  a  thousandfold 
hidden  beauty  and  divineness  dwells  in  all  Nature;    which 
let  all  men  worship  as  they  can !  We  may  say  without  offence, 
that  there  rises  a  kind  of  universal  Psalm  out  of  this  Shake-  20 
speare  too;    not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among  the  still 
more  sacred  Psalms.     Not  in  disharmony  with  these,  if  we 
understood    them,    but    in    harmony! — I    cannot    call    this 
Shakespeare  a  "  Sceptic,"  as  some  do;    his  indifference  to 
the  creeds  and  theological  quarrels  of  his  time  misleading  25 
them.     No:   neither  unpatriotic,  though  he  says  little  about 
his  Patriotism;    nor   sceptic,   though  he    says   little  about 
his  Faith.     Such  "  indifference  "  was  the  fruit  of  his  great- 
ness withal:    his  whole  heart  was  in  his  own  grand  sphere 
of  worship  (we  may  call  it  such) ;   these  other  controversies,  30 
vitally  important  to  other  men,  were  not  vital  to  him. 

But  call  it  worship,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  it  not  a  right 
glorious  thing,  and  set  of  things,  this  that  Shakespeare  has 

1  Scattered  pieces. 

^The  passage  in  Shakespeare's  "Tempest"  from  which  the  v^ords 
quoted  in  the  preceding  sentence  are  taken,  is  inscribed  on  the  scroll 
in  the  hand  of  Shakespeare's  statue  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


434  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

brought  us?  For  myself,  I  feel  that  there  is  actually  a  kind 
of  sacredness  in  the  fact  of  such  a  man  being  sent  into  this 
Earth.  Is  he  not  an  eye  to  us  all;  a  blessed  heaven-sent 
Bringer  of  Light? — and,  at  bottom,  was  it  not  perhaps  far 
5  better  that  this  Shakespeare,  everyway  an  unconscious  man, 
was  conscious  of  no  Heavenly  message?  He  did  not  feel, 
like  Mahomet,  because  he  saw  into  those  internal  Splendours, 
that  he  specially  was  the  "  Prophet  of  God:"  and  was  he 
not  greater  than  Mahomet  in  that?    Greater;    and  also,  if 

lo  we  compute  strictly,  as  we  did  in  Dante's  case,  more  suc- 
cessful. It  was  intrinsically  an  error  that  notion  of  Ma- 
homet's, of  his  supreme  Prophethood;  and  has  come  down 
to  us  inextricably  involved  in  error  to  this  day;  dragging 
along  with  it  such  a  coil  of  fables,  impurities,  intolerances, 

15  as  makes  it  a  questionable  step  for  me  here  and  now  to  say, 
as  I  have  done,  that  Mahomet  was  a  true  Speaker  at  all, 
and  not  rather  an  ambitious  charlatan,  perversity  and 
simulacrum;  no  Speaker,  but  a  Babbler!  Even  in  Arabia,  as 
I  compute,  jMahomet  will  have  exhausted  himself  and  become 

20  obsolete,  while  this  Shakespeare,  this  Dante  may  still  be 
young; — while  this  Shakespeare  m^ay  still  pretend  to  be 
a  Priest  of  ]\Iankind,  of  Arabia  as  of  other  places,  for  un- 
limited periods  to  come ! 

Compared  with  any  speaker  or  singer  one  k  ows,  even  with 

25iEschylus  or  Homer,  why  should  he  not,  for  veracity  and 
universality,  last  like  them?  He  is  sincere  as  they;  reaches 
deep  down  like  them,  to  the  universal  and  perennial.  But  as 
for  ]\Iahomet,  I  think  it  had  been  better  for  him  7iot  to  be 
so  conscious!  Alas,  poor  Mahomet;   all  that  he  was  conscious 

30  of  was  a  mere  error;  a  futility  and  triviality — as  indeed 
such  ever  is.  The  truly  great  in  him  too  was  the  unconscious: 
that  he  was  a  wild  Arab  lion  of  the  desert,  and  did  speak- 
out  with  that  great  thunder-voice  of  his,  not  by  words  which 
he  thought  to  be  great,  but  by  actions,  by  feelings,  by  a 

35  history  which  were  great!  His  Koran  has  become  a  stupid 
piece  of  prolix  absurdity;  we  do  not  believe,  like  him 
that  God  wrote  that!   The  Great  Man  here  too,  as  always 


SHAKESPEARE  435 

is  a  Force  of  Nature:    whatsoever  is  truly  great  in  him 
springs-up  from  the  particulate  deeps. 

Well:  this  is  our  poor  Warwickshire  Peasant,  who  rose  to 
be  Manager  of  a  Playhouse,  so  that  he  could  live  without 
begging;  whom  the  Earl  of  Southampton  cast  some  kind  5 
glances  on;  whom  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  many  thanks  to  him, 
was  for  sending  to  the  Treadmill!  We  did  not  account 
him  a  god,  like  Odin,  while  he  dwelt  with  us; — on  which 
point  there  were  much  to  be  said.  But  I  will  say  rather, 
or  repeat:  In  spite  of  the  sad  state  Hero-worship  now  liesio 
in,  consider  what  this  Shakespeare  has  actually  become 
among  us.  Which  Englishman  we  ever  made,  in  this  land 
of  ours,  which  million  of  EngHshmen,  would  we  not  give-up 
rather  than  the  Stratford  Peasant?  There  is  no  regiment 
of  highest  Dignitaries  that  we  would  sell  him  for.  He  is 
is  the  grandest  thing  we  have  yet  done.  For  our  honour 
among  foreign  nations,  as  an  ornament  to  our  English 
Household,  what  item  is  there  that  we  would  not  surrender 
rather  than  him?  Consider  now,  if  they  asked  us.  Will  you 
give-up  your  Indian  Empire  or  your  Shakespeare,  you  20 
English;  never  have  had  any  Indian  Empire,  or  never  have 
had  any  Shakespeare?  Really  it  were  a  grave  question. 
Official  persons  would  answer  doubtless  in  official  language; 
but  we,  for  our  part  too,  should  not  we  be  forced  to  answer: 
Indian  Empire,  or  no  Indian  Empire;  we  cannot  do  without  25 
Shakespeare!  Indian  Empire  will  go,  at  any  rate,  some  day; 
but  this  Shakespeare  does  not  go,  he  lasts  forever  with  us; 
we  cannot  give-up  our  Shakespeare! 

Nay,  apart  from  spiritualities;  and  considering  him 
merely  as  a  real,  marketable,  tangibly-useful  possession.  30 
England,  before  long,  this  Island  of  ours,  will  hold  but  a 
small  fraction  of  the  English:  in  America,  in  New  Holland,^ 
east  and  west  to  the  very  Antipodes,  there  will  be  a  Saxon- 
dom  covering  great  spaces  of  the  Globe.  And  now,  what 
is  it  that  can  keep  all  these  together  into  virtually 'one  35 
Nation,  so  that  they  do  not  fall-out  and  fight,  but  live  at 
^  New  Holland;  Australia. 


43G  THOMAS  CARLYLE 

peace,  in  brotherlike  intercourse,  helping  one  another? 
This  is  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  practical  problem, 
the  thing  all  manner  of  sovereignties  and  governments 
are  here  to  accomplish:  what  is  it  that  will  accomplish  this? 
5  Acts  of  Parliament,  administrative  prime-ministers  cannot. 
America  is  parted  from  us,  so  far  as  Parliament  could  part 
it.  Call  it  not  fantastic,  for  there  is  much  reality  in  it: 
Here,  I  say,  is  an  English  King,  whom  no  time  or  chance, 
Parliament  or  combination  of  Parliaments,  can  dethrone! 

loThis  King  Shakespeare,  does  not  he  shine,  in  crowned 
sovereignty,  over  us  all,  as  the  noblest,  gentlest,  yet  strongest 
of  rallying-signs;  mdestructible;  really  more  valuable  in 
that  point  of  view  than  any  other  means  or  appliance 
whatsoever?   We  can  fancy  him  as  radiant  aloft  over  all  the 

15  Nations  of  Englishmen,  a  thousand  years  hence.  From 
Paramatta,  from  New  York,  wheresoever,  under  what  sort 
of  Parish-Constable  soever,  English  men  and  women  are, 
they  will  say  to  one  another:  "  Yes,  this  Shakespeare  is 
ours;  we  produced  him,  we  speak  and  think  by  him;  we  are 

20 of  one  blood  and  kind  with  him."  The  most  common- 
sense  politician,  too,  if  he  pleases,  may  think  of  that. 

Yes,  truly,  it  is  a  great  thing  for  a  Nation  that  it  get  an 
articulate  voice;  that  it  produce  a  man  who  will  speak- 
forth  melodiously  what  the  heart  of  it  means!    Italy,  for 

25  example,  poor  Italy  lies  dismembered,  scattered  asunder, 
not  appearing  in  any  protocol  or  treaty  as  a  unity  at  all; 
yet  the  noble  Italy  is  actually  one:  Italy  produced  its  Dante; 
Italy  can  speak!  The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  he  is  strong, 
with  so  many  bayonets,  Cossacks  and  cannons;    and  does 

30  a  great  feat  in  keeping  such  a  tract  of  Earth  politically 
together;  but  he  cannot  yet  speak.  Something  great  in 
him,  but  it  is  a  dumb  greatness.  He  has  had  no  voice  of 
genius,  to  be  heard  of  all  men  and  times.  He  must  learn 
to   speak.     He   is   a   great    dumb   monster   hitherto.      His 

35  cannons  and  Cossacks  will  all  have  rusted  into  nonentity, 
while  that  Dante's  voice  is  still  audible.  The  Nation  that 
has  a  Dante  is  bound  together  as  no  dumb  Russia  can  be. 


CHARLES  LAMB  i  '    ^    •^- 

Walter  Pater 

Those  English  critics  who  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century  introduced  from  Germany,  together  with  some  other 
subtleties  of  thought  transplanted  hither  not  without 
advantage,  the  distinction  between  the  Fancy  and  the  Imag- 
ination, made  much  also  of  the  cognate  distinction  between  5 
Wit  and  Humour,  between  that  unreal  and  transitory  mirth, 
which  is  as  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  the  pot,  and  the 
laughter  which  blends  with  tears  and  even  with  the  sub- 
limities of  the  imagination,  and  which,  in  its  most  exquisite 
motives,  is  one  with  pity — the  laughter  of  the  comedies  of  10 
Shakespeare,  hardly  less  expressive  than  his  moods  of 
seriousness  or  solemnity,  of  that  deeply  stirred  soul  of  sym- 
pathy in  him,  as  flowing  from  which  both  tears  and  laughter 
are  alike  genuine  and  contagious. 

This  distinction  between  wit  and  humour,  Coleridge  and  15 
other  kindred   critics   applied,    with  much  effect,   in   their 
studies  of  some  of  our  older  English  writers.     And  as  the 
distinction  between  imagination  and  fancy,  made  popular 
by    Wordsworth,    found    its    best    justification    in    certain 
essential  differences  of  stuff  in  Wordsworth's  own  writings,  20 
so  this  other  critical  distinction,  between  wit  and  huniour, 
finds  a  sort  of  visible   interpretation    and  instance  in  the 
character   and  writings  of  Charles   Lamb; — one  who  lived 
more  consistently  than  most  writers  among  subtle  literary 
theories,  and  whose  remains  are  still  full  of  curious  interest  25 
for  the  student  of  literature  as  a  fine  art. 

^  From  "  Appreciations,"  1889. 

437 


438  WALTER  PATER 

;(The  author  of  the  English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  coming  to  the  humourists  of  the  nineteenth,  would 
have  found,  as  is  true  pre-eminently  of  Thackeray  himself, 
the  springs  of  pity  in  them  deepened  by  the  deeper  sub- 
sjectivity,  the  intenser  and  closer  living  with  itself,  wWh 
is  characteristic  of  the  temper  of  the  later  generation; 
and  therewith,  the  mirth  also,  from  the  amalgam  of  which 
with  pity  humour  proceeds,  has  become,  in  Charles  Dickens, 
for  example,  freer  and  more  boisterous. 

lo  -To  this  more  high-pitched  feeling,  since  predominant  in  our 
literature,  the  writings  of  Charles  Lamb,  whose  life  occupies 
the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth,  are  a  transition;  and  such  union 
of  grave,  of  terrible  even,  with  gay,  we  may  note  in  the  circum- 

15  stances  of  his  life,  as  reflected  thence  into  his  work.  We 
catch  the  aroma  of  a  singular,  homely  sweetness  about  his 
first  years,  spent  on  Thames'  side,  amid  the  red  bricks  and 
terraced  g.^rdens,  with  their  rich  historical  memories  of 
old-fashioned  legal  London.   "^Just  above  the  poorer  class, 

20 deprived,  as  he  says,  of  the  "  sweet  food  of  icadcniic  institu- 
tion," he  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  reared  in  the  classical 
languages  at  an  ancient  school,  where  he  becomes  the  com- 
panion of  Coleridge,  as  at  a  later  period  he  was  his  enthusiastic 
disciple.  'So  far,  the  years  go  by  with  less  than  the  usual 

25  share  of  boyish  difBculties;  protected,  one  fancies,  seeing 
what  he  was  afterwards,  by  some  attraction  of  temper  in 
the  quaint  child,  small  and  delicate,  with  a  certain  Jewish 
expression  in  his  clear,  brown  complexion,  eyes  not  precisely 
of  the  same  colour,  and  a  slow  walk  adding  to  the  staidness 

30 of  his  figure;  and  whose  infirmity  of  speech,  increased  by 
agitation,  is  partly  engaging. 

'^■And  the  cheerfulness  of  all  this,  of  the  mere  aspect  of 
Lamb's  quiet  subsequent  life  also,  might  make  the  more 
superficial  reader  think  of  him  as  in  himself  something  slight, 

35 and  of  his  mirth  as  cheaply  bought.  ''Yet  we  know  that 
beneath  this  blithe  surface  there  was  something  of  the  fateful 
domestic  horror,  of  the  beautiful  heroism  and  devotedness 


CHARLES  LAMB  439 

too,  of  old  Greek  tragedy.  His  sister  Mary,  ten  years  his 
senior,  in  a  sudden  paroxysm  of  madness,  caused  the  death 
of  her  mother,  and  was  brought  to  trial  for  what  an  over- 
strained justice  might  have  construed  as  the  greatest  of 
crimes.  She  was  released  on  the  brother's  pledging  him-  5 
self  to  watch  over  her;  and  to  this  sister,  from  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  Charles  Lamb  sacrificed  himself,  "  seeking 
thenceforth,"  says  his  earliest  biographer,  "  no  connection 
which  could  interfere  with  her  supremacy  in  his  affections, 
or  impair  his  ability  to  sustain  and  comfort  her."  The  10 
"  feverish  i-onuntic  tie  of  love  "  he  cast  away  in  exchange 
for  the  "charities  of  home."  Only,  from  time  to  time,  the 
madness  returned,  affecting  him  too,  once;  and  we  see  the 
brother  and  sister  voluntarily  yielding  to  restraint.  In 
estimating  the  humour  of  Elia,  we  must  no  more  forget  the  15 
strong  undercurrent  of  this  great  misfortune  and  pity, 
than  one  could  forget  it  in  his  actual  story.  So  he  becomes 
the  best  critic,  almost  the  discoverer,  of  Webster,  a  dramatist 
of  genius  so  sombre,  so  heavily  coloured,  so  macabre}  Rosa- 
mund Grey  written  in  his  twenty-third  year,  a  story  with  20 
something  bitter  and  exaggerated,  an  almost  insane  fixedness 
of  gloom  perceptible  in  it,  strikes  clearly  this  note  in  his 
work. 

For  himself,  and  from  his  own  point  of  view,  the  exercise 
of  his  gift,  of  his  literary  art,  came  to  gild  or  sweeten  a  life  25 
of  monotonous  labour,  and  seemed,  as  far  as  regarded  others, 
no  very  important  thing;    availing  to  give  them  a  little 
pleasure,  and  inform  them  a  little,  chiefly  in  a  retrospective 
manner,  but  in  no  way  concerned  with  the  turning  of  the 
tides  of  the  great  world.     And  yet  this  very  modesty,  this  30 
unambitious   way  of  conceiving  his   work,   has  impressed 
upon   it   a   certain   exceptional   enduringness.     For  of   the 
remarkable    English    writers    contemporary    with    Lamb, 
many  were  greatly   preoccupied  with   ideas  of  practice — 
religious,  moral,  political — ideas  which  have  since,  in  some  35 
sense  or  other,  entered  permanently  into  the  general  con- 
1  Macabre:  very  grim. 


440  WALTER  PATER 

sciousness;  and,  these  having  no  longer  any  stimulus  for  a 
generation  provided  with  a  different  stock  of  ideas,  the 
writings  of  those  who  spent  so  much  of  themselves  in  their 
propagation  have  lost,  with  posterity,  something  of  what 
5  they  gained  by  them  in  immediate  influence.  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  Shelley  even — sharing  so  largely  in  the  unrest 
of  their  own  age,  and  made  personally  more  interesting 
thereby,  yet,  of  their  actual  work,  surrender  more  to  the 
mere  course  of  time  than  some  of  those  who  may  have  seemed 

lo  to  exercise  themselves  hardly  at  all  in  great  matters,  to  have 
been  little  serious,  or  a  little  indifferent,  regarding  them. 

Of  this  number  of  the  disinterested  servants  of  literature, 
smaller  in  England  than  in  France,  Charles  Lamb  is  one. 
In  the  making  of  prose  he  realises  the  principle  of  art  for 

IS  its  own  sake,  as  completely  as  Keats  in  the  making  of  verse. 
And,  working  ever  close  to  the  concrete,  to  the  details,  great 
or  small,  of  actual  things,  books,  persons,  and  with  no  part 
of  them  blurred  to  his  vision  by  the  intervention  of  mere 
abstract  theories,  he  has  reached  an  enduring  moral  effect 

20  also,  in  a  sort  of  boundless  sympathy.  Unoccupied,  as  he 
might  seem,  with  great  matters,  he  is  in  immediate  contact 
with  what  is  real,  especially  in  its  caressing  liUleness,  that 
littleness  in  which  there  is  much  of  the  whole  woeful  heart 
of  things,  and  meets  it  more  than  half-way  with  a  perfect 

25  understanding  of  it.  What  sudden,  unexpected  touches  of 
pathos  in  him ! — bearing  witness  how  the  sorrow  of  humanity, 
the  Weltschmerz,  the  constant  aching  of  its  wounds,  is  ever 
present  with  him:  but  what  a  gift  also  for  the  enjoyment 
of  life  in  its  subtleties,  of  enjoyment  actually  refined  by  the 

30  need  of  some  thoughtful  economies  and  making  the  most 
of  things!  Little  arts  of  happiness  he  is  ready  to  teach  to 
others.  The  quaint  remarks  of  children  which  another 
would  scarcely  have  heard,  he  preserves — little  flies  in  the 
priceless  amber  of  his  Attic  wit — and  has  his  "  Praise  of 

35  chimney-sweepers  "  (as  William  Blake  has  written,  with 
so  much  natural  pathos,  the  Chimney-sweeper's  Song), 
valuing  carefully  their  white  teeth,  and  fine  enjoyment  of 


CHARLES   LAMB  441 

white  sheets  in  stolen  sleep  at  Arundel  Castle,  as  he  tells 
the  story,  anticipating  something  of  the  mood  of  our  deep 
humourists  of  the  last  generation.  His  simple  mother- 
pity  for  those  who  suffer  by  accident,  or  unkindness  oi  nature, 
blindness  for  instance,  or  fateful  disease  of  mind  like  his  5 
sister's,  has  something  primitive  in  its  largeness;  and  on 
behalf  of  ill-used  animals  he  is  early  in  composing  a  Pity's 
Gift. 

And  if,  in  deeper  or  more  superficial  sense,  the  dead  do 
care  at  all  for  their  name  and  fame,  then  how  must  the  souls  10 
of  Shakespeare  and  Webster  have  been  stirred,  after  so  long 
converse  with  things  that  stopped  their  ears,  whether  above 
or  below  the  soil,  at  his  exquisite  appreciations  of  them; 
the  souls  of  Titian  and  of  Hogarth  too;    for,  what  has  not 
been  observed  so  generally  as  the  excellence  of  his  Uterary  15 
criticism,  Charles  Lamb  is  a  fine    critic  of  painting  also. 
It  was  as  loyal,  self-forgetful  work  for  others,  for  Shake- 
speare's self  first,  for  instance,  and  then  for  Shakespeare's 
readers,  that  that  too  was  done:   he  has  the  true  scholar's 
way    of    forgetting    himself    in    his    subject.     For    though  20 
"  defrauded,"  as  we  saw,  in  his  young  years,  "  of  the  sweet 
food  of  academic  institution,"  he  is  yet  essentially  a  scholar, 
and  all  his  work  mainly  retrospective,  as  I  said;    his  own 
sorrows,  affections,  perceptions,  being  alone  real  to  him  of 
the  present.     "  I  cannot  make  these  present  times,"  he  says  25 
once,  "  present  to  me.'" 

Above  all,  he  becomes  not  merely  an  expositor,  per- 
manently valuable,  but  for  Englishmen  almost  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  old  English  drama.  "The  book  is  such  as  I 
am  glad  there  should  be,"  he  modestly  says  of  the  Specimens  30 
of  English  Dramatic  Poets  who  lived  about  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare; to  which,  however,  he  adds  in  a  series  of  notes  the 
very  quintessence  of  criticism,  the  choicest  savour  and 
perfume  of  Elizabethan  poetry  being  borted,  and  stored 
here,  with  a  sort  of  delicate  intellectual  epicureanism,  35 
which  has  had  the  effect  of  winning  for  these,  then  almost 
forgotten,  poets,  one  generation  after  another  of  enthusiastic 


442  WALTER  PATER 

students.  Could  he  but  have  known  how  fresh  a  source  of 
culture  he  was  evoking  there  for  other  generations,  through 
all  those  years  in  which,  a  little  wistfully,  he  would  harp 
on  the  hmitation  of  his  time  by  business,  and  sigh  for  a  better 

S  fortune  in  regard  to  literary  opportunities ! 

To  feel  strongly  the  charm  of  an  old  poet  or  morahst, 
the  Uterary  charm  of  Burton,  for  instance,  or  Quarles,  or 
The  Duchess  of  Newcastle;  and  then  to  interpret  that  charm, 
to  convey  it  to  others — he  seeming  to  himself  but  to  hand  on 

loto  others,  in  mere  humble  ministration,  that  of  which  for 
them  he  is  really  the  creator — this  is  the  way  of  his  criticism; 
cast  off  in  a  stray  letter  often,  or  passing  note,  or  lightest 
essay  or  conversation.  It  is  in  such  a  letter,  for  instance, 
that  we  come  upon  a  singularly  penetrative  estimate  of  the 

15  genius  and  writings  of  Defoe. 

Tracking,  with  an  attention  always  alert,  the  whole  process 
of  their  production  to  its  starting-point  in  the  deep  places  of 
the  mind,  he  seems  to  realise  the  but  half-conscious  intuitions 
of  Hogarth  or  Shakespeare,  and  develops  the  great  ruling 

20 unities  which  have  swayed  their  actual  work;  or  "puts 
up,"  and  takes,  the  one  morsel  of  good  stuff  in  an  old, 
forgotten  writer.  Even  in  w^hat  he  says  casually  there  comes 
an  aroma  of  old  EngUsh;  noticeable  echoes,  in  chance  turn 
and  phrase,  of  the  great  masters  of  style,  the  old  masters. 

25  Godwin,  seeing  in  quotation  a  passage  from  John  Woodvil, 
takes  it  for  a  choice  fragment  of  an  old  dramatist,  and  goes 
to  Lamb  to  assist  him  in  finding  the  author.  His  power 
of  delicate  imitation  in  prose  and  verse  reaches  the  length 
of  a  fine  mimicry  even,  as  in  those  last  essays  of  EHa  on 

30  Popular  Fallacies,  with  their  gentle  reproduction  or  car- 
icature of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  showing,  the  more  com- 
pletely, his  mastery,  by  disinterested  study,  of  those  elements 
of  the  man  which  were  the  real  source  of  style  in  that  great, 
solemn  master  of  old  English,  who,  ready  to  say  what  he 

35  has  to  say  with  fearless  homeliness,  yet  continually  overawes 
one  with  touches  of  a  strange  utterance  from  worlds  afar. 
For  it  is  with  the  delicacies  of  fine  literature  especially,  its 


CHARLES  LAMB  443 

gradations  of  expression,  its  fine  judgment,  its  pure  sense  of 
words,  of  vocabulary — things,  alas !  dying  out  in  the  English 
literature  of  the  [)resent,  together  with  the  appreciation 
of  them  in  our  literature  of  the  past — that  his  literary 
mission  is  chiefly  concerned.  And  yet,  delicate,  refining,  5 
daintily  epicurean,  as  he  may  seem,  when  he  writes  of  giants 
such  as  Hogarth  or  Shakespeare,  though  often  but  in  a 
stray  note,  you  catch  the  sense  of  veneration  with  which 
those  great  names  in  past  literature  and  art  brooded  over  his 
intelligence,  his  undiminished  impressibility  by  the  great  10 
effects  in  them.  Reading,  commenting  on  Shakespeare,  he 
is  like  a  man  who  walks  alone  under  a  grand  stormy  sky, 
and  among  unwonted  tricks  of  light,  when  powerful  spirits 
might  seem  to  be  abroad  upon  the  air;  and  the  grim 
humour  of  Hogarth,  as  he  analyses  it,  rises  into  a  kind  of  15 
spectral  grotesque;  while  he  too  knows  the  secret  of  fine, 
significant  touches  like  theirs. 

There  are  traits,  customs,  characteristics  of  houses  and 
dress,  surviving  morsels  of  old  life,  such  as  Hogarth  has 
transferred  so  vividly  into  The  Rake's  Progress,  or  Marriage  20 
a  la  Mode,  concerning  which  we  well  understand  how,  com- 
mon, uninteresting,  or  even  worthless  in  themselves,  they 
have  come  to  please  us  at  last  as  things  picturesque,  being 
set  in  relief  against  the  modes  of  our  different  age.     Customs, 
stiff  to  us,   stifT  dresses,   stiff  furniture — types  of  cast-ofT  25 
fashions,  left  by  accident,  and  which  no  one  ever  meant 
to  preserve — we  contemplate  with  more  than  good-nature, 
as  having  in  them  the  veritable  accent  of  a  time,  not  alto- 
gether to  be  replaced  by  its  more  solemn  and  self-conscious 
deposits;    like  those  tricks  of  individuality  which  we  find  30 
quite  tolerable  in  persons,  because  they  convey  to  us  the 
secret  of  lifelike  expression,  and  with  regard  to  which  we 
are  all  to  some  extent  humourists.     But  it  is  part  of  the 
privilege  of  the  genuine  humourists  to  anticipate  this  pen- 
sive mood  with  regard  to  the  ways  and  things  of  his  own  35 
day;    to  look  upon  the  tricks  in  manner  of  the  life  about 
him  with  that  same  refined,  purged  sort  of  vision,  which 


444  WALTER  PATER 

will  come  naturally  to  those  of  a  later  generation,  in  observ- 
ing whatever  may  have  survived  by  chance  of  its  mere 
external  habit.  Seeing  things  always  by  the  light  of  an 
understanding  more  entire  than  is  possible  for  ordinary 
5  minds,  of  the  whole  mechanism  of  humanity,  and  seeing 
also  the  manner,  the  outward  mode  or  fashion,  always 
in  strict  connection  with  the  spiritual  condition  which  deter- 
mined it,  a  humourist  such  as  Charles  Lamb  anticipates 
the  enchantment  of  distance;    and  the  characteristics  of 

lo  places,  ranks,  habits  of  life,  are  transfigured  for  him,  even 
now  and  in  advance  of  time,  by  poetic  light ;  justifying  what 
some  might  condemn  as  mere  sentimentality,  in  the  effort 
to  hand  on  unbroken  the  tradition  of  such  fashion  or  accent. 
"  The  praise  of  beggars,"  "  the  cries  of  London,"  the  traits 

15  of  actors  just  grown  "  old,"  the  spots  in  "  town  "  where  the 
country,  its  fresh  green  and  fresh  water,  still  lingered  on, 
one  after  another,  amidst  the  bustle;  the  quaint,  dimmed, 
just  played-out  farces,  he  had  relished  so  much,  coming 
partly    through    them    to    understand    the    earlier    English 

20  theatre  as  a  thing  once  really  alive;  those  fountains  and  sun- 
dials of  old  gardens,  of  which  he  entertains  such  dainty 
discourse: — he  feels  the  poetry  of  these  things,  as  the  poetry 
of  things  old  indeed,  but  surviving  as  an  actual  part  of  the 
life  of  the  present,  and  as  something  quite  different  from 

25  the  poetry  of  things  flatly  gone  from  us  and  antique,  which 
come  back  to  us,  if  at  all,  as  entire  strangers,  like  Scott's 
old  Scotch-border  personages,  their  oaths  and  armour. 
Such  gift  of  appreciation  depends,  as  I  said,  on'  the  habitual 
apprehension  of  men's  life  as  a  whole — its  organic  wholeness, 

30  as  extending  even  to  the  least  things  in  it — of  its  outward 
manner  in  connection  with  its  inward  temper;  and  it  involves 
a  fine  perception  of  the  congruitics,  the  musical  accordance 
between  humanity  and  its  environment  of  custom,  society, 
personal  intercourse;  as  if  all  this,  with  its  meetings,  partings, 

35  ceremonies,  gesture,  tones  of  speech,  were  some  delicate 
instrument  on  which  an  expert  performer  is  playing. 

These  are  some  of  the  characteristics  of  Elia,  one  essen- 


CHARLES  LAMB  445 

tially  an  essayist,  and  of  the  true  family  of  Montaigne, 
"  never  judging,"  as  he  says,  "  system-wise  of  things,  but 
fastening  on  particulars;"  saying  all  things  as  it  were  on 
chance  occasion  only,  and  by  way  of  pastime,  yet  succeed- 
ing thus,  "  glimpse- wise,"  in  catching  and  recording  more  s 
frequently  than  others  "  the  gayest,  happiest  attitude  of 
things;"  a  casual  writer  for  dreamy  readers,  yet  always 
giving  the  reader  so  much  more  than  he  seemed  to  propose. 
There  is  something  of  the  follower  of  George  Fox  about  him, 
and  the  Quaker's  belief  in  the  inward  light  coming  to  one  lo 
passive,  to  the  mere  wayfarer,  who  will  be  sure  at  all  events 
to  lose  no  light  which  falls  by  the  way — glimpses,  sugges- 
tions, delightful  half-apprehensions,  profound  thoughts 
of  old  philosophers,  hints  of  the  innermost  reason  in  things, 
the  full  knowledge  of  which  is  held  in  reserve;  all  the  varied  15 
stuff,  that  is,  of  which  genuine  essays  are  made. 

And  with  him,  as  with  Montaigne,  the  desire  of  self- 
portraiture  is,  below  all  more  superficial  tendencies,  the  real 
motive  in  writing  at  all — a  desire  closely  connected  with 
that  intimacy,  that  modern  subjectivity,  which  may  be  20 
called  the  Montaignesque  element  in  literature.  What  he 
designs  is  to  give  you  himself,  to  acquaint  you  with  his  like- 
ness; but  must  do  this,  if  at  all,  indirectly,  being  indeed 
always  more  or  less  reserved,  for  himself  and  his  friends; 
friendship  counting  for  so  much  in  his  life,  that  he  is  jealous  25 
of  anything  that  might  ja^  or  disturb  it,  even  to  the  length 
of  a  sort  of  insincerity,  to  which  he  assigns  its  quaint "  praise;" 
this  lover  of  stage  plays  significantly  welcoming  a  little 
touch  of  the  artificiality  of  play  to  sweeten  the  intercourse 
of  actual  life.  30 

And,  in  effect,  a  very  delicate  and  expressive  portrait  of 
him  does  put  itself  together  for  the  duly  meditative  reader. 
In  indirect  touches  of  his  own  work,  scraps  of  faded  old 
letters,  what  others  remembered  of  his  talk,  the  man's 
likeness  emerges;  what  he  laughed  and  wept  at,  his  sudden  35 
elevations,  and  longings  after  absent  friends,  his  fine  casuis- 
tries of  affection  and  devices  to  jog  sometimes,  as  he  says, 


446  WALTER  PATER 

the  lazy  happiness  of  perfect  love,  his  solemn  moments  of 
higher  discourse  with  the  young,  as  they  came  across  him  on 
occasion,  and  went  along  a  little  way  with  him,  the  sudden 
surprised  apprehension  of  beauties  in  old  literature,  reveal- 
sing  anew  the  deep  soul  of  poetry  in  things,  and  withal  the 
pure  spirit  of  fun,  having  its  way  again;  laughter,  that  most 
short-lived  of  all  things  (some  of  Shakespeare's  even  being 
grown  hollow)  wearing  well  with  him.  Much  of  all  this 
comes  out  through  his  letters,  which  may  be  regarded  as  a 

lo  department  of  his  essays.  He  is  an  old-fashioned  letter- 
writer,  the  essence  of  the  old  fashion  of  letter-writing  lying, 
as  with  true  essay-writing,  in  the  dexterous  availing  oneself 
of  accident  and  circumstance,  in  the  prosecution  of  deeper 
lines  of  observation;    although,  just  as  with  the  record  of 

15  his  conversation,  one  loses  something,  in  losing  the  actual 
tones  of  the  stammerer,  still  graceful  m  his  baiting,  as  he 
halted  also  in  composition,  composing  slowly  and  by  fits, 
"  like  a  Flemish  painter,"  as  he  tells  us,  so  "  it  is  to  be  re- 
gretted," says  the  editor  of  his  letters,  "  that  in  the  printed 

20  letters  the  reader  will  lose  the  curious  varieties  of  writing 
with  which  the  originals  abound,  and  which  are  scrupulously 
adapted  to  the  subject." 

Also,  he  was  a  true  "  collector,"  delighting  in  the  personal 
finding  of  a  thing,  in  the  colour  an  old  book  or  print  gets 

25  for  him  by  the  little  accidents  which  attest  previous  owner- 
ship. Wither's  Emblems,  "  that  old  book  and  quaint," 
long-desired,  when  he  finds  it  at  last,  he  values  none  the  less 
because  a  child  had  coloured  the  plates  with  his  paints. 
A  lover  of  household  warmth  everywhere,  of  that  tempered 

30  atmosphere  which  our  various  habitations  get  by  men's 
living  within  them,  he  "  sticks  to  his  favourite  books  as  he 
did  to  his  friends,"  and  loved  the  "  town,"  with  a  jealous 
eye  for  all  its  characteristics,  "  old  houses  "  coming  to  have 
souls    for    him.     The   yearning    for   mere    warmth    against 

35  him  in  another,  makes  him  content,  all  through  life,  with 
pure  i^rothcrlincss.  "  the  most  kindly  and  natural  species 
of  love,"  as  he  siys,  in  place  of  the  passion  of  love.     Brother 


CHARLES   LAMB  447 

and  sister,  sitting  thus  side  by  side,  have,  of  course,  their 
anticipations  how  one  of  them  must  sit  at  last  in  the  faint 
sun  alone,  and  set  us  speculating,  as  we  read,  as  to  precisely 
what  amount  of  melancholy  reall  accompanied  for  him 
the  approach  of  old  age,  so  steadily  foreseen;  make  us  note  5 
also  with  pleasure,  his  successive  wakings  up  to  cheerful 
realities,  out  of  a  too  curious  musing  over  what  is  gone  and 
what  remains,  of  life.  In  his  subtle  capacity  for  enjoying 
the  more  refined  points  of  earth,  of  human  relationship, 
he  could  throw  the  gleam  of  poetry  or  humour  on  what  10 
seemed  common  or  threadbare;  has  a  care  for  the  sighs, 
and  the  weary,  humdrum  preoccupations  of  very  weak 
people,  down  to  their  little  pathetic  "  gentiUties,"  even; 
while,  in  the  purely  human  temper,  he  can  write  of  death, 
almost  like  Shakespeare.  15 

And  that  care,  through  all  his  enthusiasm  of  discovery, 
for  what  is  accustomed,  in  literature,  connected  thus  with 
his  close  clinging  to  home  and  the  earth,  was  congruous 
also  with  that  love  for  the  accustomed  in  religion,  which 
we  may  notice  in  him.  He  is  one  of  the  last  votaries  of  20 
that  old-world  sentiment,  based  on  the  feelings  of  hope  and 
awe,  which  may  be  described  as  the  religion  of  men  of  letters 
(as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  has  his  Religion  of  the  Physician), 
religion  as  understood  by  the  soberer  men  of  letters  in  the 
last  century,  Addison,  Gray,  and  Johnson;  by  Jane  Austen  25 
and  Thackeray,  later.  A  high  way  of  feeling  developed 
largely  by  constant  intercourse  with  the  great  things  of 
literature,  and  extended  in  its  turn  to  those  matters  greater 
still,  this  religion  lives,  in  the  main  retrospective}}',  in  a 
system  of  received  sentiments  and  beliefs;  received,  like 30 
those  great  things  of  literature  and  art,  in  the  first  instance, 
on  the  authority  of  a  long  tradition,  in  the  course  of  which 
they  have  linked  themselves  in  a  thousand  complex  ways  to 
the  conditions  of  human  life,  and  no  more  questioned  now 
than  the  feeling  one  keeps  by  one  of  the  greatness— ^say  1 35 
of  Shakespeare.  For  Charles  Lamb,  such  form  of  religion 
becomes  the  solcnin  backofround  on  which  the  nearer  and 


448  WALTER  PATER 

more  exciting  oljjects  of  his  immediate  experience  relieve 
themselves,  borrowing  from  it  an  expression  of  calm;  its 
necessary  atmosphere  being  indeed  a  profound  quiet,  that 
quiet  which  has  in  it  a  kind  of  sacramental  efficacy,  working, 
5  we  might  say,  on  the  principle  of  the  opus  opcratum,^  almost 
without  any  co-operation  of  one's  own,  towards  the  asser- 
tion of  the  higher  self.  And,  in  truth,  to  men  of  Lamb's 
delicately  attuned  temperament  mere  physical  stillness  has 
its  full  value;    such  natures  seeming   to  long  for  it  some- 

lo  times,  as  for  no  merely  negative  thing,  with  a  sort  of  mystical 
sensuality. 

,  The  writings  of  Charles  Lamb  are  an  excellent  illustration 
of  the  value  of  reserve  in  literature.  Below  his  quiet,  his 
quaintness,  his  humour,  and  what  may  seem  the  slightness, 

15  the  occasional  or  accidental  character  of  his  work,  there 
lies,  as  I  said  at  starting,  as  in  his  life,  a  genuinely  tragic 
element.  The  gloom,  reflected  at  its  darkest  in  those  hard 
shadows  of  Rosamund  Grey,  is  always  there,  though  not 
always  realised  either  for  himself  or  his  readers,  and  re- 

20  strained  always  in  utterance.  It  gives  to  those  lighter  mat- 
ters on  the  surface  of  life  and  literature  among  which  he  for 
the  most  part  moved,  a  wonderful  force  of  expression,  as  if 
at  any  moment  these  slight  words  and  fancies  might  pierce 
very  far  into  the  deeper  soul  of  things.     In  his  writing,  as  in 

25  his  life,  that  quiet  is  not  the  low-flying  of  one  from  the  first 
drowsy  ])y  choice,  and  needing  i\v  prick  of  some  strong 
passion  or  worldly  ambition,  to  stimulate  him  into  all  the 
energy  of  which  he  is  capable;  but  rather  the  reaction  of 
nature,  after  an  escape  from  fate,  dark  and  insane  as  in  old 

30  Greek  tragedy,  following  upon  which  the  sense  of  mere  reUef 
becomes  a  kind  of  passion,  as  with  one  who,  having  narrowly 
escaped  earthquake  or  shipwreck,  finds  a  thing  for  grateful 
tears  in  just  sitting  quiet  at  home,  under  the  wall,  till  the 
end  of  days. 

^  Opus  operatum  (a  phrase  from  Catholic  theology) :  the  work  per- 
formed through  the  sacraments — baptism,  confirmation,  etc. — the 
efl&cacy  of  which  is  not  dependent  on  the  participants. 


CHARLES   LAMB  449 

He  felt  the  genius  of  places;  and  I  sometimes  think  he 
resembles  the  places  he  knew  and  liked  best,  and  where  his 
lot  fell — London,  sixty-five  years  ago,  with  Covent  Garden 
and  the  old  theatres,  and  the  Temple  gardens  still  unspoiled, 
Thames  gliding  down,  and  beyond  to  north  and  south  the  5 
fields  at  Enfield  or  Hampton,  to  which,  "  with  their  living 
trees,"  the  thoughts  wander  "  from  the  hard  wood  of  the 
desk  " — fields  fresher,  and  coming  nearer  to  town  then, 
but  in  one  of  which  the  present  writer  remembers,  on  a  brood- 
ing early  summer's  day,  to  have  heard  the  cuckoo  for  the  10 
first  time.  Here,  the  surface  of  things  is  certainly  humdrum, 
the  streets  dingy,  the  green  places,  where  the  child  goes  a- 
maying,  tame  enough.  But  nowhere  are  things  more  apt 
to  respond  to  the  brighter  weather,  nowhere  is  there  so  much 
difference  between  rain  and  sunshine,  nowhere  do  the  clouds  15 
roll  together  more  grandly;  those  quaint  suburban  pastorals 
gather  a  certain  quality  of  grandeur  from  the  background 
of  the  great  city,  with  its  weighty  atmosphere,  and  portent 
of  storm  in  the  rapid  light  on  dome  and  bleached  stone 
steeples.  20 


DR.  HEIDEGGER'S  EXPERIMENT  ^ 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

That  very  singular  man,  old  Dr.  Heidegger,  once  invited 
four  veneralile  friends  to  meet  him  in  his  study.  There 
were  three  white-bearded  gentlemen,  Mr.  Medbourne, 
Colonel  Killigrew,  and  Mr.  Gascoigne,  and  a  withered  gen- 
^tlewoman,  whose  name  was  the  Widow  Wycherly.  They 
were  all  melancholy  old  creatures,  who  had  been  unfortunate 
in  life,  and  whose  greatest  misfortune  it  was,  that  the}^  were 
not  long  ago  in  their  graves.  Mr.  Medbourne,  in  the  vigor 
of  his  age,  had  been  a  prosperous  merchant,  but  had  lost 

lohis  all  by  a  frantic  speculation,  and  was  now  little  better 
than  a  mendicant.  Colonel  Killigrew  had  wasted  his  best 
years,  and  his  health  and  substance,  in  the  pursuit  of  sinful 
pleasures,  which  had  given  birth  to  a  broocl  of  pains,  such 
as  the  gout,  and  divers  other  torments  of  soul  and  body. 

15 Mr.  Gascoigne  was  a  ruined  politician,  a  man  of  evil  fame, 
or  at  least  had  been  so,  till  time  had  buried  him  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  present  generation,  and  made  him  ob- 
scure instead  of  infamous.  As  for  the  Widow  Wycherly, 
tradition  tells  us  that  she  was  a  great  beauty  in  her  day; 

20 but,  for  a  long  while  past,  she  had  lived  in  deep  seclusion, 
on  account  of  certain  scandalous  stories,  which  had  prej- 
udiced the  gentry  of  the  town  against  her.  It  is  a  cir- 
cumstance worth  mentioning,  that  each  of  these  three  old 
gentlemen,    Mr.    Medbourne,    Colonel    Killigrew,    and   Mr. 

25  Gascoigne,  were  early  lovers  of  the  Widow  Wycherly,  and 
had  once  been  on  the  point  of  cutting  each  others'  throats 
for  her  sake.     And,  before  proceeding  further,  I  will  merely 
1  From  "  Twice  Told  Tales,"  1837. 

450 


DR.  HEIDEGGER'S  EXPERIMENT  451 

hint,  that  Dr.  Heidegger  and  all  his  four  guests  were  some- 
times thought  to  be  a  little  beside  themselves;    as  is  not 
ufifrequently  the  case  with  old  [people,  when  worried  either  . 
by  present  troubles  or  woeful  recollections. 

"  My  dear  old  friends,"  said  Dr.  Heidegger,  motioning   5 
them  to  be  seated,  "  I  am  desirous  of  your  assistance  in 
one  of  those  Httle  experiments  with  which  I  amuse  myself 
here  in  my  study." 

If  all  stories  were  true.  Dr.  Heidegger's  study  must  have 
been  a  very  curious  place.     It  was  a  dim,  old-fashioned  10 
chamber   festooned    with    cobwebs,    and   besprinkled   with 
antique  dust.     Around  the  walls  stood  several  oaken  book- 
cases, the  lower  shelves  of  which  were  filled  with  rows  of 
gigantic   folios,    and   black-letter    quartos,   and    the   upper 
with  little  parchment-covered  duodecimos.     Over  the  cen- 15 
tral  bookcase  was  a  bronze  bust  of  Hippocrates,  with  which, 
according  to  some  authorities.  Dr.  Heidegger  was  accustomed 
to  hold  consultations,  in  all  difficult  cases  of  his  practice. 
In  the  obscurest  corner  of  the  room  stood  a  tall  and  narrow 
oaken  closet,  with  its  door  ajar,  within  which  doubtfully  20 
appeared  a  skeleton.     Between  two  of  the  bookcases  hap.g 
a  looknig-glass,  presenting  its  high  and  dusty  plate  within 
a   tarnished   gilt   frame.     Among   many   wonderful   stories 
related  of  this  mirror,  it  was  fabled  that  the  spirits  of  all 
the  doctor's  deceased  patients  dwelt  within  its  verge,  and  25 
would  stare  him  in  the  face  whenever  he  looked  thither- 
ward.    The  opposite  side  of  the  chamber  was  ornamented 
with  the  full-length  portrait  of  a  young  lady,  arrayed  in 
the  faded  magnificence  of  silk,  satin,  and  brocade,  and  with 
a  visage  as  faded  as  her  dress.     Above  half  a  century  ago  3° 
Dr.  Heidegger  had  been  on  the  point  of  marriage  with  this 
young  lady;    but,  being  affected  with  some  slight  disorder, 
she  had  swallowed  one  of  her  lover's  prescriptions,  and  died 
on  the  bridal  evening.     The  greatest  curiosity  of  the  study 
remains  to  be  mentioned;   it  was  a  ponderous  folio  volume, 35 
bound  in  black  leather,  with  massive  silver  clasps.     There 
were  no  letters  on  the  back,  and  nobody  could  tell   the 


452  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

title  of  the  book.  But  it  was  well  known  to  be  a  book  of 
magic;  and  once,  when  a  chambermaid  had  lifted  it,  merely 
to  brush  away  the  dust,  the  skeleton  had  rattled  in  its  closet, 
the  picture  of  the  young  lady  had  stepped  one  foot  upon  the 
S  floor,  and  several  ghastly  faces  had  peeped  forth  from  the 
mirror;  while  the  brazen  head  of  Hippocrates  frowned, 
and  said — "  Forbear!  " 

Such  was  Dr.  Heidegger's  study.  On  the  summer  after- 
noon of  our  tale,  a  small  round  table,   as  black  as  ebony, 

lo  stood  in  the  center  of  the  room  sustaining  a  cut-glass  vase 
of  beautiful  form  and  elaborate  workmanship.  The  sun- 
shine came  through  the  window,  between  the  heavy  festoons 
of  two  faded  damask  curtains,  and  fell  directly  across  this 
vase,  so  that  a  mild  splendor  was  reflected  from  it  on  the 

15  ashen  visages  of  the  five  old  people  who  sat  around.  Four 
champagne  glasses  were  also  on  the  table. 

''  My  dear  old  friends,"  repeated  Dr.  Heidegger,  "  may 
I  reckon  on  your  aid  in  performing  an  exceedingly  curious 
experiment?  " 

20  Now  Dr.  Heidegger  was  a  very  strange  old  gentleman, 
whose  eccentricity  had  become  the  nucleus  for  a  thousand 
fantastic  stories.  Some  of  these  fables,  to  my  shame  be 
it  spoken,  might  possibly  be  traced  back  to  mine  own  vera- 
cious self;    and  if  any  passage  of  the  present  tale  should 

25  startle  the  reader's  faith,  I  must  be  content  to  bear  the 
stigma  of  a  fiction  monger. 

When  the  doctor's  four  guests  heard  him  talk  of  his 
proposed  experiment,  they  anticipated  nothing  more  won- 
derful than  the  murder  of  a  mouse  in  an  air  pump,  or  the 

30  examination  of  a  cobweb  by  the  microscope,  or  some  similar 
nonsense,  with  which  he  was  constantly  in  the  habit  of 
pestering  his  intimates.  But  without  waiting  for  a  reply. 
Dr.  Heidegger  hobbled  across  the  chamber,  and  returned 
with   the   same   ponderous   folio,   bound   in   black   leather, 

35  which  common  report  afhrmed  to  be  a  book  of  magic. 
Undoing  the  silver  clasps,  he  opened  the  volume,  and  took 
from  among  its  black-letter  pages  a  rose,  or  what  was  once 


DK.   HEIDEGGER'S   EXI'EIMMENT  453 

a  rose,  though  now  the  green  leaves  and  crimson  petals 
had  assumed  one  brownish  hue,  and  the  ancient  flower 
seemed  ready  to  crumble  to  dust  in  the  doctor's  hands. 

"  This  rose,"  said  Dr.  Heidegger,  with  a  sigh,  "  this 
same  withered  and  crumbling  flower,  blossomed  five  and  5 
fifty  years  ago.  It  was  given  me  by  Sylvia  Ward,  whose 
portrait  hangs  yonder;  and  I  meant  to  wear  it  in  my  bosom 
at  our  wedding.  Five  and  fifty  years  it  has  been  treasured 
between  the  leaves  of  this  old  volume.  Now,  would  you 
deem  it  possible  that  this  rose  of  half  a  century  could  ever  10 
bloom  again?  " 

"Nonsense!"  said  the  Widow  Wycherly,  with  a  peev- 
ish toss  of  her  head.  "  You  might  as  well  ask  whether  an 
old  woman's  wrinkled  face  could  ever  bloom  again." 

"  See!  "  answered  Dr.  Heidegger.  15 

He  uncovered  the  vase,  and  threw  the  faded  rose  into 
the  water  which  it  contained.  At  first,  it  lay  lightly  on 
the  surface  of  the  fluid,  appearing  to  imbibe  none  of  its 
moisture.  Soon,  however,  a  singular  change  began  to 
be  visible.  The  crushed  and  dried  petals  stirred,  and  20 
assumed  a  deepening  tinge  of  crimson,  as  if  the  flower 
were  reviving  from  a  death-like  slumber;  the  slender  stalk 
and  twigs  of  foliage  became  green;  and  there  was  the  rose 
of  half  a  century,  looking  as  fresh  as  when  Sylvia  Ward 
had  first  given  it  to  her  lover.  It  was  scarcely  full  blown;  25 
for  some  of  its  delicate  red  leaves  curled  modestly  around 
its  moist  bosom,  within  which  two  or  three  dewdrops  were 
sparkling. 

"  That  is  certainly  a  very  pretty  deception,"  said  the 
doctor's   friends;    carelessly,   however,   for   they   had   wit- 30 
nessed  greater  miracles  at  a  conjurer's  show;    "  pray  how 
was  it  effected?" 

"  Did  you  never  hear  of  the  '  Fountain  of  Youth  '?  " 
asked  Dr.  Heidegger,  "  which  Ponce  De  Leon,  the  Spanish 
adventurer,  went  in  search  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago?"  35 

'■  But  did  Ponce  De  Leon  ever  find  it?"  said  the  Widow 
Wycherly. 


454  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

"  No,"  answered  Dr.  Heidegger,  "  for  he  never  sought 
it  in  the  right  place.  The  famous  Fountain  of  Youth, 
if  I  am  rightly  informed,  is  situated  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  Floridian  peninsula,  not  far  from  Lake  Macaco. 
5  Its  source  is  overshadowed  by  several  gigantic  magnolias, 
which,  though  numberless  centuries  old,  have  been  kept 
as  fresh  as  violets,  by  the  virtues  of  this  wonderful  water. 
An  acquaintance  of  mine,  knowing  my  curiosity  in  such 
matters,  has  sent  me  what  you  see  in  the  vase." 

lo  "  Ahem!"  said  Colonel  KJlligrew,  who  believed  not 
a  word  of  the  doctor's  story;  "  and  what  may  be  the  effect 
of  this  fluid  on  the  human  frame?  " 

"  You  shall  judge  for  yourself,  my  dear  Colonel,"  replied 
Dr.   Heidegger;    "  and  all  of  you,   my   respected   friends, 

15  are  welcome  to  so  much  of  this  admirable  fluid,  as  may 
restore  to  you  the  bloom  of  youth.  For  my  own  part, 
having  had  much  trouble  in  growing  old,  I  am  in  no  hurry 
to  grow  young  again.  With  your  permission,  therefore, 
I  will  merely  watch  the  progress  of  the  experiment." 

20  While  he  spoke,  Dr.  Heidegger  had  been  filling  the  four 
champagne  glasses  with  the  water  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth. 
It  was  apparently  impregnated  with  an  effervescent  gas, 
for  little  bubbles  were  continually  ascending  from  the 
depths  of  the  glasses,  and  bursting;  i;i  silver}-  spray  at  the 

25  surface.  As  the  liquor  diffused  a  pleasant  perfume,  the  old 
people  doubted  not  that  it  possessed  cordial  and  comfortable 
properties;  and,  though  utter  sceptics  as  to  its  rejuvenescent 
power,  they  were  inchned  to  swallow  it  at  once.  But  Dr. 
Heidegger  besought  them  to  stay  a  moment. 

30  "  Before  you  drink,  my  respectable  old  friends,"  said 
he,  "  it  would  be  well  that,  with  the  experience  of  a  life- 
time to  direct  you,  you  should  draw  up  a  few  general  rules 
for  your  guidance,  in  passing  a  second  time  through  the  perils 
of  youth.     Think  what  a  sin  and  shame  it  would  be,  if, 

35  with  your  peculiar  advantages,  you  should  not  become 
patterns  of  virtue  and  wisdom  to  all  the  young  people  of 
the  age!" 


DR.   HEIDEGGER'S  EXPERIMENT  455 

T|ie  doctor's  four  venerable  friends  made  him  no  answer, 
except  by  a  feeble  and  tremulous  laugh;  so  very  ridiculous 
was  the  idea,  ihat,  knowing  how  closely  repentance  treads 
behind  the  steps  of  error,  they  should  e\'cr  go  astray  again. 

"  Drink,    then,"    said    the    doctor,    bowing;     "  1    rejoice  s 
that  I  have  so  well  selected  the  subjects  of  my  experiment." 

With  palsied  hands,  they  raised  the  glasses  to  their  lips. 
The  liquor,  if  it  really  possessed  such  virtues  as  Dr.  Heidegger 
imputed  to  it,  could  not  have  been  bestowed  on  four  human 
beings  who  needed  it  more  wofuUy.  They  looked  as  if  lo 
they  had  never  known  what  youth  or  pleasure  was,  but  had 
been  the  offspring  of  Nature's  dotage,  and  always  the  gray, 
decrepit,  saple.-..s,  miserable  creatures,  who  now  sat  stooping 
round  the  doctor's  table,  without  life  enough  in  their  souls 
or  bodies  to  be  animated  even  by  the  prospect  of  growing  15 
young  again.  They  drank  oflf  the  water,  and  replaced  their 
glasses  on  the  table. 

Assuredly  there  was  an  almost  immediate  improvement 
in  the  aspect  of  the  party,  not  unlike  what  might  have  been 
produced  by  a  glass  of  generous  wine,  together  with  a  20 
sudden  glow  of  cheerful  sunshine,  brightening  over  all  their 
visag>.'S  at  once.  There  was  a  healthful  suffusion  on  their 
cheeks,  instead  of  the  ashen  hue  that  had  made  them  look 
so  corpse-like.  They  gazed  at  one  another,  and  fancied  that 
some  magic  power  had  really  begun  to  smooth  away  the  25 
deep  and  sad  inscriptions  which  Father  Time  had  been  so 
long  engraving  on  their  brows.  The  Widow  Wycherly 
adjusted  her  cap,  for  she  felt  almost  like  a  woman  again. 

"Give   us   more   of   this   wondrous   water!"     cried  they, 
eagerly.     "We    are    younger — but    we    are    still    too    old [30 
Quick — give  us  more!" 

"  Patience,   patience!"     quoth   Dr.    Heidegger,    who   sat 
watching  the  experiment,  with  philosophic  coolness.    "  You 
have   been  a  long   time  growing    old.     Surely,  you   might 
be  content  to  grow  young  in  half  an  hour!     But  the  water 35 
is  at  your  service." 

Again  he  filled  their   glasses   with   the  liquor  of  youth. 


456  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

enough  of  which  still  remained  in  the  vase  to  turn  half 
the  old  people  in  the  city  to  the  age  of  their  own  grand- 
children. While  the  bubbles  were  yet  sparkhng  on  the 
brim,  the  doctor's  four  guests  snatched  their  glasses  from 

5  the  table,  and  swallowed  the  contents  at  a  single  gulp. 
Was  it  delusion?  Even  while  the  draught  was  passing  down 
their  throats,  it  seemed  to  have  wrought  a  change  on  their 
whole  systems.  Their  eyes  grew  clear  and  bright;  a  dark 
shade  deepened  among  their  silvery  locks;   they  sat  around 

lothe  table,  three  gentlemen,  of  middle  age,  and  a  woman, 
hardly  beyond  her  buxom  prime. 

*'  My  dear  widow,  you  are  charming!''  cried  Colonel 
Killigrew,  whose  eyes  had  been  fixed  upon  her  face,  while 
the  shadows  of  age  were  flitting  from  it  like  darkness  from 

IS  the  crimson  d-iybreak. 

The  fair  widow  knew,  of  old,  that  Colonel  Killigrew 's 
compliments  were  not  always  measured  by  sober  truth; 
so  she  started  up  and  ran  to  the  mirror,  still  dreading  that 
the  ugly   visage  of  an  old  woman  would  meet  her  gaze. 

20  Meanwhile,  the  three  gentlemen  behaved  in  such  a  manner 
as  proved  that  the  water  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth  pos- 
sessed some  intoxicating  qualities;  unless,  indeed,  their 
exhilaration  of  spirits  were  merely  a  lightsonie  dizziness, 
caused  by  the  sudden  removal  of  the  weight  of  years.     jVIr. 

25  Gascoigne's  mind  seemed  to  run  on  political  topics,  but 
v.hether  relating  to  the  past,  present,  or  future,  could  not 
easily  be  determined,  since  the  same  ideas  and  phrases 
have  been  in  vogue  these  fifty  years.  Now  he  rattled 
forth    fuU-throated    sentences    about     patriotism,    national 

30 glory,  and  the  peoj^le's  right;  now  he  muttered  some  perilous 
stuff  or  other,  in  a  sly  aixl  doubtful  whisper,  so  cautiously 
that  even  his  own  conscience  could  scarcely  catch  the  secret; 
and  now,  again,  he  spoke  in  measured  accents,  and  a  deeply 
deferential  tone,  as  if  a  royal  ear  were  listening  to  bis  weil- 

35  turned  periods.  Colonel  Killigrew  all  this  time  had  been 
trolling  forth  a  jolly  bottle  song,  and  ringing  his  glass  in 
synij)hony  with  the  chorus,  while  his  eyes  wandered  toward 


DR.   HEIDEGGER'S  EXPERIMENT  4')? 

the  .buxom  figure  of  the  Widow  Wycherly.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  table,  Mr.  Medbourne  was  involved  in  a  calcula- 
tion of  dollars  and  cents,  with  which  was  strangely  inter- 
mingled a  project  for  supplying  the  East  Indies  with  ice,  by 
harnessing  a  team  of  whales  to  the  polar  icebergs.  5 

As  for  the  Widow  Wycherly,  she  stood  before  the  mirror 
courtesying  and  simpering  to  her  own  image,  and  greeting 
it  as  the  friend  whom  she  loved  better  than  all  the  world 
beside.  She  thrust  lier  face  close  to  the  glass,  to  see  whether 
some  long-remcnibt-rcd  wrinkle  or  crow's-foot  had  indeed  lo 
vanished.  She  examined  whether  the  snow  had  so  entirely 
melted  from  her  hair,  that  the  venerable  cap  could  be  safely 
thrown  aside.  At  last,  turning  briskly  away,  she  came  with 
a  sort  of  dancing  step  to  the  table. 

"My  dear  old  doctor,"  cried  she,  "pray  favor  me  with  15 
another  glass!" 

"Certainly,  my  dear  madam,  certainly!"  replied  the 
complaisant  doctor;  "  see!  I  have  already  filled  the 
glasses." 

There,   in   fact,   stood   the   four   glasses,   brimful   of   this  20 
wonderful  water,   the  delicate  spray  of  which,  as  it  effer- 
vesced from   the  surface,   resembled   the   tremulous  glitter 
of  diamonds.     It  was  now  so  nearly  sunset,  that  the  chamber 
had  grcMVii  duskier  than  ever;    but  a  mild  and  moonlight 
splendor  gleamed  from  within   the   vase,  and  rested  alike  25 
on  the  f(  ur  c;uests  and  on  the   doctor's  venerable  figure. 
He  sat  in  a  high-backed,   elaborately-carved,  oaken  arm- 
chair, with  a  gray  di<,'!iity  of  aspect  that  might  have  well 
befitted   that   \ery   lather  Tiint^.    whose  power  had   never 
been    disputed,    save    by    this    fortunate    company.     Even  30 
while  quaffing  the  third  draught  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth, 
they  were  almost  awed  by  the  expression  of  his  mysterious 
visage. 

But,   the  next  moment,   the  exhilarating  gush   of  young 
life  shot  through  their  \eins.     They  were  now  in  the  happy  35 
prime  of  youth.     Age,   with   its  miseral)!j   train    'f   cares, 
and  sorrows,  and  diseases,  was  remembered  only  as  the 


458  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

trouble  of  a  dream,  from  which  they  had  joyously  awoke. 
The  fresh  c^loss  of  the  soul,  so  early  lost,  and  without  which 
the  world's  successive  scenes  had  been  but  a  gallery  of  faded 
Ijictures,  again  threw  its  enchantment  over  all  their  pros- 
spects.  They  felt  like  new-created  beings,  in  a  new-created 
universe. 

"We   are  young!     We  are  young!"   they  cried  exult- 
ingly. 

Youth,  Hke  the  extremity  of  age,  had  effaced  the  strongly- 
lo  marked  characteristics  of  middle  life,  and  mutually  assimi- 
lated them  all.     They  were  a  group  of  merry  youngsters, 
almost  maddened  with  the  exhuberant  frolicsomeness  of  their 
years.    The  most  singular  effect  of  their  gayety  was  an 
impulse  to   mock  the  infirmity  and  decrepitude   of  which 
15  they  had  so  lately  been  the  victims.     They  laughed  loudly 
at   their  old-fashioned   attire,    the  wide-skirted   coats   and 
flapped  waistcoats  of  the  young  men,  and  the  ancient  cap 
and  gown  of  the  blooming  girl.     One  limped  across  the 
floor,  like  a  gouty  grandfather;   one  set  a  pair  of  spectacles 
20  astride  of  his  nose,  and  pretended  to  pore  over  the  black- 
letter  pages  of  the  book  of  magic;    a  third  seated  himself 
in  an  arm-chair,  and  strove  to  imitate  the  venerable  dignity 
of  Dr.  Heidegger.     Then  all  shouted  mirthfully,  and  leaped 
about  the  room.     The  Widow  Wycherly — if  so  fresh  a  damsel 
25  could  be  called  a  widow — tripped  up  to  the  doctor's  chair, 
with  a  mischievous  merriment  in  her  rosy  face. 

"  Doctor,  you  dear  old  soul,'"   cried  she,   "  get  up  and 
dance  with  me!  "     And  then  the  four  young  people  laughed 
louder  than  ever  to  think  what  a  queer  figure  the  poor  old 
30  doctor  would  cut. 

"  Pray  excuse  me,"  answered  the  doctor,   quietly.     "  1 
am  old  and  rheumatic,  and  my  dancing  days  were  over 
long  ago.     But  either  of  these  gay  young  gentlemen  will 
be  glad  of  so  pretty  a  partner." 
35      "  Dance  with  me,  Clara!  "  cried  Colonel  Killigrew. 

"  No,    no,    I    will    be    her    partner!  "      shouted     Mr. 
Gascoigne. 


DR.   HEIDEGGER'S  EXPERIMENT  459 

"  She  promised  me  her  hand  fifty  years  ago!  "  exclaimed 
Mr.  Medbourne. 

They    all   gathered    round    her.     One    caught    both    her 
hands    in    his    passionate    grasp — another    threw    his    arm 
about   her   waist — the   third   buried   his   hand   among   the   s 
glossy  curls  that  clustered  beneath  the  widow's  cap.     Blush- 
ing, panting,  struggling,  chiding,  laughing,  her  warm  breath 
fanning  each  of  their  faces  by  turns,  she  strove  to  disengage 
herself,  yet  still  remained  in   their  triple  embrace.     Never 
was  there  a  livelier  picture  of  youthful  rivalship,  with  be-  lo 
witching  beauty  for  the  prize.     Yet,  by  a  strange  deception, 
owing  to  the  duskiness  of  the   chamber,  and  the  antique 
dresses  which  they  still  wore,  the  tall  mirror  is  said  to  have 
reflected  the  figures  of  the  three  old,  gray,  withered  grand- 
sires,  ridiculously  contending   for  the  skinny  ugliness  of  a  15 
shrivelled  grandam. 

But  they  were  young:  their  burning  passions  proved 
them  so.  Inflamed  to  madness  by  the  coquetry  of  the 
girl-widow,  who  neither  granted  nor  quite  withheld  her 
favors,  the  three  rivals  began  to  interchange  threatening  20 
glances.  Still  keeping  hold  of  the  fair  prize,  they  grappled 
fiercely  at  one  another's  throats.  As  they  stnicrgled  to  and 
fro,  the  table  was  overturned,  and  the  vase  dashed  into  a 
thousand  fragments.  The  precious  Water  of  Youth  flowed 
in  a  bright  stream  across  the  floor,  moistening  the  wings  25 
of  a  butterfly,  which,  grown  old  in  the  decline  of  summer, 
had  alighted  there  to  die.  The  insect  fluttered  lightly 
through  the  chamber,  and  settled  on  the  snowy  head  of 
Dr.  Heidegger. 

"Come,   come   gentlemen! — come,   Madame   Wycherly,"  30 
exclaimed  the  doctor,  "  I  really  must  protest  against  this 
riot." 

They  stood  still,  and  shivered;    for  it  seemed  as  if  gray 
Time    were   calling   them   back   from    their   sunny   youth, 
far  down  into  the  chill  and  dark'^ome  vii'e  nt  y^'ars.     They  35 
looked  at  old  Dr.  Heidegger,  who  sat  in  his  carved  arm- 
chair, holding  the  rose  of  half  a  century,  which  he   had 


460  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

rescued  from  among  the  fragments  of  the  shattered  vase. 
At  the  motion  of  his  hand,  the  four  rioters  resumed  their 
seats;  the  more  readily  because  their  violent  exertions 
had  wearied  them,  youthful  though  they  were. 
5  "  My  poor  Sylvia's  rose!  "  ejaculated  Dr.  Heidegger, 
holding  it  in  the  light  of  the  sunset  clouds;  "  it  appears 
to  be  fading  again." 

And  so  it  was.  Even  while  the  party  were  looking  at 
it,  the  flower  continued  to  shrivel  up,  till  it  became  as  dry 

loand  fragile  as  when  the  doctor  had  first  thrown  it  into  the 
vase.  He  shook  off  the  few  drops  of  moisture  which  clung 
to  its  petals. 

"  I  love  it  as  well  thus,  as  in  its  dewy  freshness,"  observed 
he,  pressing  the  withered  rose  to  his  withered  lips.     While 

1 5  he  spoke,  the  butterfly  fluttered  down  from  the  doctor's 
snowy  head,  and  fell  upon  the  floor. 

His  guests  shivered  again.  A  strange  chillness,  whether 
of  the  body  or  spirit  they  could  not  tell,  was  creeping  grad- 
ually  over    them    all.     They   gazed   at   one   another,    and 

2o fancied  that  each  fleeting  moment  snatched  away  a  charm, 
and  left  a  deepening  furrow  where  none  had  been  before. 
Was  it  an  illusion?  Had  the  changes  of  a  lifetime  been 
crowded  into  so  brief  a  space,  and  were  they  now  four 
aged  people,  sitting  with  their  old  friend,  Dr.  Heidegger? 

25  "  Are  we  grown  old  again,  so  soon?  "  cried  they,  dole- 
fully. 

In  truth  they  had.  The  Water  of  Youth  possessed 
merely  a  virtue  more  transient  than  that  of  wine.  The 
dehrium    which    it    created    had    efTervesced    away.     Yes! 

30  they  were  old  again.  With  a  shuddering  imf)ulse,  that 
showed  her  a  woman  still,  the  widow  clasped  her  skinny 
hands  before  her  face,  and  wished  that  the  coffm  lid  were 
over  it,  since  it  could  no  longer  be  beautiful. 

"  Yes,   friends,  we  are  old  again,"   said  Dr.   Heidegger; 

35  "  and  lo!  the  Water  of  Youth  is  all  lavished  on  the  ground. 
Well — I  bemoan  it  not;  for  if  the  fountain  gushed  at  my 
very  doorstep,  I  would  not  stoop  to  bathe  my  lips  in  it— 


DR.  HEIDEGGER'S  EXl'ERIMENT  461 

no,  though  its  delirium  were  for  years  instead  of  moments. 
Such  is  the  lesson  ye  have  taught  me!  " 

But  the  doctor's  four  friends  had  taught  no  such  lesson 
to  themselves.  They  resolved  forthwith  to  make  a  pil- 
grimage to  Florida,  and  quafT  at  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
from  the  Fountain  of  Youth. 


MARKHEIM  ^ 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

"  Yes,"  said  the  dealer,  "  our  windfalls  are  of  various 
kinds.  Some  customers  are  ignorant,  and  then  I  touch  a 
dividend  on  my  superior  knowledge.  Some  are  dishonest," 
and  here  he  held  up  the  candle,  so  that  the  light  fell  strongly 
on  his  visitor,  "  and  in  that  case,"  he  continued,  "  I  profit 
by  my  virtue." 

Markheim  had  but  just  entered  from  the  daylight  streets, 
and  his  eyes  had  not  yet  grown  familiar  with  the  mingled 
shine  and  darkness  in  the  shop.  At  these  pointed  words, 
and  before  the  near  presence  of  the  flame,  he  blinked  pain- 
fully and  looked  aside. 

The  dealer  chuckled.  "  You  come  to  me  on  Christmas 
Day,"  he  resumed,  "  when  you  know  that  I  am  alone  in 
my  house,  put  up  my  shutters,  and  make  a  point  of  refusing 
business.  Well,  you  will  have  to  pay  for  that;  you  will 
have  to  pay  for  my  loss  of  time,  when  I  should  be  balancing 
my  books;  you  will  have  to  pay,  besides,  for  a  kind  of  manner 
that  I  remark  in  you  to-day  very  strongly.  I  am  the  essence 
of  discretion,  and  ask  no  awkward  questions;  but  when  a 
customer  cannot  look  me  in  the  eye,  he  has  to  pay  for  it." 
The  dealer  once  more  chuckled;  and  then,  changing  to  his 
usual  business  voice,  though  still  with  a  note  of  irony,  "  You 
can  give,  as  usual,  a  clear  account  of  how  you  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  object?"  he  continued.  "  Still  your 
uncle's  cabinet?  A  remarkable  collector,  sir!" 

And  the  little  pale,  round-shouldered  dealer  stood  almost  on 
tip-toe,  loking  over  the  top  of  his  gold  spectacles,  and  nodding 

1  First  published  in  1885. 

462 


MARKHEIM  4G3 

his  head  with  every  mark  of  disbelief.     Markheim  returned 
his  gaze  with  one  of  infinite  pity,  and  a  touch  of  horror. 

"  This  time,"  said  he,  "  you  are  in  error.  I  have  not  come 
to  sell,  but  to  buy.  I  have  no  curios  to  dispose  of;  my 
uncle's  cabinet  is  bare  to  the  wainscot;  even  were  it  still  5 
intact,  I  have  done  well  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  should 
more  likely  add  to  it  than  otherwise,  and  my  errand  to-day 
is  simpHcity  itself.  I  seek  a  Christmas  present  for  a  lady," 
he  continued,  waxing  more  fluent  as  he  struck  into  the  speech 
he  had  prepared;  "  and  certainly  I  owe  you  every  excuse  10 
for  thus  disturbing  you  upon  so  small  a  matter.  But  the 
thing  was  neglected  yesterday;  I  must  produce  my  little 
compliment  at  dinner;  and,  as  you  very  well  know,  a  rich 
marriage  is  not  a  thing  to  be  neglected." 

There  followed  a  pause,  during  which  the  dealer  seemed  15 
to  weigh  this  statement  incredulously.     The  ticking  of  many 
clocks  among  the  curious  lumber  of  the  shop,  and  the  faint 
rushing  of  the  cabs  in  a  near  thoroughfare,  filled  up  the 
interval  of  silence. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  dealer,  "  be  it  so.  You  are  an  old  2c 
customer  after  all;  and  if,  as  you  say,  you  have  the  chance 
of  a  good  marriage,  far  be  it  from  me  to  be  an  obstacle. 
Here  is  a  nice  thing  for  a  lady  now,"  he  went  on,  "  this  hand 
glass — fifteenth  century,  warranted;  comes  from  a  good 
collection,  too,  but  I  reserve  the  name,  in  the  interests  25 
of  my  customer,  who  was  just  like  yourself,  my  dear  sir, 
the  nephew  and  sole  heir  of  a  remarkable  collector." 

The  dealer,  while  he  thus  ran  on  in  his  dry  and  biting  voice, 
had  stooped  to  take  the  object  from  its  place;  and,  as  he  had 
done  so,  a  shock  had  passed  through  Markheim,  a  start  30 
both  of  hand  and  foot,  a  sudden  leap  of  many  tumultuous 
passions  to  the  face.  It  passed  as  swiftly  as  it  came,  and 
left  no  trace  beyond  a  certain  trembling  of  the  hand  that 
now  received  the  glass. 

"  A  glass,"  he  said  hoarsely,  and  then  paused,  and  repeated  35 
it  more  clearly.     "A  glass?    For  Christmas?     Surely  not?" 

"  And  why  not?"   cried  the  dealer.     "  Why  not  a  glass?" 


464  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Markheim  was  looking  upon  him  with  an  indefinable 
expression.  "  You  ask  me  why  not?"  he  said.  "  Why, 
look  here — look  in  it — look  at  yourself!  Do  you  like  to  see 
it?  No!  nor  I — nor  any  man." 
S  The  Httle  man  had  jumped  back  when  Markheim  had  so 
suddenly  confronted  him  with  the  mirror;  but  now,  per- 
ceiving there  was  nothing  worse  on  hand,  he  chuckled. 
"  Your  future  lady,  sir,  must  be  pretty  hard  favored,"  said 
he. 

lo  "  I  ask  you,"  said  Markheim,  "  for  a  Christmas  present, 
and  you  give  me  this — this  damned  reminder  of  years,  and 
sins  and  follies — this  hand-conscience!  Did  you  mean  it? 
Had  you  a  thought  in  your  mind?  Tell  me.  It  will  be  better 
for  you  if  you  do.     Come,  tell  me  about  yourself.     I  hazard 

15  a  guess  now%  that  you  are  in  secret  a  very  charitable  man?" 

The  dealer  looked  closely  at  his  companion.     It  was  very 

odd,  Markheim  did  not  appear  to  be  laughing;    there  was 

something  in  his  face  like  an  eager  sparkle  of  hope,  but 

nothing  of  mirth. 

20     "  What  are  you  driving  at?"   the  dealer  asked. 

"  Not  charitable?"  returned  the  other,  gloomily.  "  Not 
charitable;  not  pious;  not  scrupulous;  unloving,  unbeloved; 
a  hand  to  get  money,  a  safe  to  keep  it.  Is  that  all?  Dear 
God,  man,  is  that  all?" 

25  "  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is,"  began  the  dealer,  with  some 
sharpness,  and  then  broke  off  again  into  a  chuckle.  "  But 
I  see  this  is  a  love  match  of  yours,  and  you  have  been  drink- 
ing the  lady's  health," 

"  Ah!"   cried  Markheim,  with  a  strange  curiosity.     "  Ah, 

30  have  you  been  in  love?  Tell  me  about  that." 

"  I,"  cried  the  dealer.  "I  in  love  I  I  never  had  the  time, 
nor  have  I  the  time  to-day  for  all  this  nonsense.  Will  you 
take  the  glass?" 

"  Where    is   the   hurry?"     returned    Markheim.     "  It    is 

35  very  pleasant  to  stand  here  talking;  and  life  is  so  short  and 
insecure  that  I  would  not  hurry  away  from  any  pleasure — 
no,  not  even  from  so  mild  a  one  as  this.    We  should  rather 


MARK  HELM  465 

cling,  cling  to  what  little  wc  can  get,  like  a  man  at  a  cliff's 
edge.  Every  second  is  a  cliff,  if  you  think  upon  it — a  cliff 
a  mile  high — high  enough,  if  we  fall,  to  dash  us  out  of  every 
feature  of  humanity.  Hence  it  is  best  to  talk  pleasantly. 
Let  us  talk  of  each  other;  why  should  we  wear  this  mask?  5 
Let  us  be  confidential.  Who  knows,  we  might  become 
friends?" 

"  I  have  just  one  word  to  say  to  you,"  said  the  dealer. 
"  Either  make  your  purchase,  or  walk  out  of  my  shop." 

"  True,   true,"   said   Markheim.     "  Enough  fooling.     To  10 
business.     Show  me  something  else." 

The  dealer  stooped  once  more,  this  time  to  replace  the 
glass  upon  the  shelf,  his  thin  blond  hair  falhng  over  his  eyes 
as  he  did  so.  Markheim  moved  a  little  nearer,  with  one 
hand  in  the  pocket  of  his  greatcoat;  he  drew  himself  up  and  15 
filled  his  lungs;  at  the  same  time  many  different  emotions 
were  depicted  together  on  his  face — terror,  horror,  and 
resolve,  fascination  and  a  physical  repulsion;  and  through 
a  haggard  lift  of  his  upper  lip,  his  teeth  looked  out. 

"  This,  perhaps,  may  suit,"  observed  the  dealer;  and  then,  20 
as  he  began  to  rcarise,  Markheim  bounded  from  behind  upon 
his  victim.     The  long,  skewerlike  dagger  flashed  and  fell. 
The  dealer  struggled  like  a  hen,  striking  his  temple  on  the 
shelf,  and  then  tumbled  on  the  floor  in  a  heaj). 

Time  had  some  score  of  small  voices  in  that  shop,  some  25 
stately  and  slow  as  was  becoming  to  their  great  age;   others 
garrulous  and  hurried.     All  these  told  out  the  seconds  in  an 
intricate  chorus  of  tickings.     Then  the  passage  of  a  lad's 
feet,  heavily  running  on  the  pavement,  broke  in  upon  these 
smaller  voices  and  startled  Markheim  into  the  consciousness  30 
of  his  surroundings.     He  looked  al:)out  him  awfully.     The 
candle  stood  on  the  counter,  its  flame  solemnly  wagging  in 
a  draught;  and  by  that  inconsiderable  movement,  the  whole 
room  was  filled  with  noiseless  bustle  and  kept  heaving  like 
a  sea:    the  tall  shadows  nodding,  the  gross  blots  of  dark- 35 
ness  swelling  and  dwindling  as  with  res[)iration,  the  faces 
of  the  portraits  and  the  china  gods  changing  and  wavering 


46G  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

like  images  in  water.  The  inner  door  stood  djar,  and 
peered  into  that  leaguer  of  shadows  with  a  long  slit  of  day- 
light like  a  pointing  finger. 

From  these  fear-stricken  rovings,  Markheim's  eyes 
S  returned  to  the  body  of  his  victim,  where  it  lay  both  humped 
and  sprawling,  incredibly  small  and  strangely  meaner 
than  in  life.  In  these  poor,  miserly  clothes,  in  that  ungainly 
attitude,  the  dealer  lay  like  so  much  sawdust.  Markheim 
had  feared  to  see  it,  and,  lo!    it  was  nothing.     And  yet, 

loas  he  gazed,  this  bundle  of  old  clothes  and  pool  of  blood 
began  to  find  eloquent  voices.  There  it  must  lie;  there 
was  none  to  work  the  cunning  hinges  or  direct  the  miracle 
of  locomotion — there  it  must  lie  till  it  was  found.  Found! 
ay,  and  then?     Then  would  this  dead  flesh  Uft  up  a  cry 

15  that  would  ring  over  England,  and  fill  the  world  with  the 
echoes  of  pursuit.  Ay,  dead  or  not,  this  was  still  the  enemy. 
"  Time  was  that  when  the  brains  were  out,"  he  thought; 
and  the  first  word  struck  into  his  mind.  Time,  now  that 
the  deed  was  accomplished — time,   which   had   closed   for 

20  the  victim,  had  become  instant  and  momentous  for  the 
slayer. 

The  thought  was  yet  in  his  mind,  when,  first  one  and 
then  another,  with  every  variety  of  pace  and  voice — one 
deep  as  the  bell  from  a  cathedral  turret,  another  ringing  on 

25  its  treble  notes  the  prelude  of  a  waltz — the  clocks  began 
to  strike  the  hour  of  three  in  the  afternoon. 

The  sudden  outbreak  of  so  many  tongues  in  that  dumb 
chamber  staggered  him.  He  began  to  bestir  himself,  going 
to  and  fro  with  the  candle,  beleaguered  by  moving  shadows, 

30  and  startled  to  the  soul  by  chance  reflections.  In  many 
rich  mirrors,  some  of  home  designs,  some  from  Venice  or 
Amsterdam,  he  saw  his  face  repeated  and  repeated,  as  it 
were  an  army  of  spies;  his  own  eyes  met  and  detected  him; 
and  the  sound  of  his  own  steps,  lightly  as  they  fell,  vexed 

35  the  surrounding  quiet.  And  still  as  he  continued  to  fill  his 
pockets,  his  mind  accused  him,  with  a  sickening  iteration, 
of   the   thousand    faults   of   his   design.     He   should   have 


MARKHEIM  467 

chosen  a  more  quiet  hour;  he  should  have  prepared  an  alibi; 
he  should  not  have  used  a  knife;  he  should  have  been  more 
cautious,  and  only  bound  and  gagged  the  dealer,  and  not 
killed  him;  he  should  have  been  more  bold,  and  killed  the 
servant  also;  he  should  have  done  all  things  otherwise;  5 
poignant  regrets,  weary,  incessant  toiling  of  the  mind  to 
change  what  was  unchangeable,  to  plan  what  was  now  use- 
less, to  be  the  architect  of  the  irrevocable  past.  Meanwhile, 
and  behind  all  this  activity,  brute  terrors,  like  the  scurry- 
ing of  rats  in  a  deserted  attic,  filled  the  more  remote  chambers  10 
of  his  brain  with  riot;  the  hand  of  the  constable  would  fall 
heavy  on  his  shoulder,  and  his  nerves  would  jerk  like  a 
hooked  fish;  or  he  beheld,  in  galloping  defile,  the  dock, 
the  prison,  the  gallows,  and  the  black  coffin. 

Terror  of  the  people  in  the  street  sat  down  before  his  ij 
mind  like  a  besieging  army.     It  was  impossible,  he  thought, 
but  that  some  rumour  of  the  struggle  must  have  reached 
their  ears  and  set  on  edge  their  curiosity;    and  now,  in  all 
the  neighbouring  houses,  he  divined  them  sitting  motionless 
and  with  uplifted  ear — solitary  people,  condemned  to  spend  20 
Christmas  dwelling   alone  on   memories  of  the  past,   and 
now  startlingly  recalled  from  that  tender  exercise;    happy 
family   parties,    struck   into   silence   round   the   table,    the 
mother  still  with  raised  finger:    every  degree  and  age  and 
humour,  but  all,  by  their  own  hearths,  prying  and  hearken-  25 
ing  and  w^eaving  the  rope  that  was  to  hang  him.     Some- 
times it  seemed  to  him  he  could  not  move  too  softly;    the 
clink  of  the  tall  Bohemian  goblets  rang  out  loudly  like  a 
bell;    and  alarmed  by  the  bigness  of  the  ticking,  he  was 
tempted  to  stop  the  clocks.     And  then,  again,  with  a  swift  30 
transition  of  his  terrors,  the  very  silence  of  the  place  appeared 
a  source  of  peril,  and  a  thing  to  strike  and  freeze  the  passer- 
by;   and    he  would   step   more  boldly,   and    bustle   aloud 
among  the  contents  of  the  shop,  and  imitate,  with  elaborate 
bravado,  the  movements  of  a  busy  man  at  ease  in  his  own  ^^ 
house. 

But  he  was  now  so  pulled  about  by  dififerent  alarms  that, 


468  ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENriON 

while  one  portion  of  his  mind  was  still  alert  and  cunning, 
another  trembled  on  the  brink  of  lunacy.  One  hallucina- 
tion in  particular  took  a  strong  hold  on  his  credulity.  The 
neighbour  hearkening  with  white  face  beside  his  window, 
5  the  passer-by  arrested  by  a  horrible  surmise  on  the  pave- 
ment— these  could  at  worst  suspect,  they  could  not  know; 
through  the  brick  walls  and  shuttered  windows  only  sounds 
could  penetrate.  But  here,  within  the  house,  was  he  alone? 
He  knew  he  was;    he  had  watched  the  servant  set  forth 

losweethearting,  in  her  poor  best,  "  out  for  the  day  "  written 
in  every  ribbon  and  smile.  Yes,  he  was  alone,  of  course; 
and  yet,  in  the  bulk  of  empty  house  above  him,  he  could 
surely  hear  a  stir  of  delicate  footing- — he  was  surely  con- 
scious, inexplicably  conscious  of  some  presence.     Ay,  surely; 

IS  to  every  room  and  corner  of  the  house  his  imagination  fol- 
lowed it;  and  now  it  was  a  faceless  thing,  and  yet  had  eyes 
to  see  with;  and  again  it  was  a  shadow  of  himself;  and  yet 
again  behold  the  image  of  the  dead  dealer,  reinspired  with 
cunning  and  hatred. 

20  At  times,  with  a  strong  effort,  he  would  glance  at  the  open 
door  which  still  seemed  to  repel  his  eyes.  The  house  was 
tall,  the  skylight  small  and  dirty,  the  day  bUnd  with  fog; 
and  the  light  that  filtered  down  to  the  ground  story  was 
exceedingly  faint,  and  showed  dimly  on  the  threshold  of  the 

25  shop.  And  yet,  in  that  strip  of  doubtful  brightness,  did 
there  not  hang  wavering  a  shadow? 

Suddenly,  from  the  street  outside,  a  very  jovial  gentle- 
man began  to  beat  with  a  staff  on  the  shop-door,  accom- 
panying his  blows  with  shouts  and  railleries  in  which  the 

30  dealer  was  continually  called  upon  by  name.  INIarkheim, 
smitten  into  ice,  glanced  at  the  dead  man.  But  no !  he  lay 
quite  still;  he  was  fled  away  far  beyond  earshot  of  these 
blows  and  shoutings;  he  was  sunk  beneath  seas  of  silence; 
and  his  name,  which  would  once  have  caught  his  notice 

35  above  the  howling  of  a  storm,  had  become  an  empty  sound. 
And  presently  the  jovial  gentleman  desisted  from  his  knock- 
ing and  departed. 


MARKHEIM  469 

Here  was  a  broad  hint  to  hurry  what  remained  to  be  done, 
to  get  forth  from  this  accusing  neighbourhood,  to  plunge 
into  a  bath  of  London  multitudes,  and  to  reach,  on  the 
other  side  of  day,  that  haven  of  safety  and  apparent  innocence 
— his  bed.  One  visitor  had  come:  at  any  moment  another  s 
might  follow  and  be  more  obstinate.  To  have  done  the 
deed,  and  yet  not  to  reap  the  profit,  would  be  too  abhor- 
rent a  failure.  The  money,  that  was  now  Markheim's 
concern;  and  as  a  means  to  that,  the  keys. 

He  glanced  over  his  shoulder  at  the  open  door,  where  the  lo 
shadow  was  still  lingering  and  shivering;   and  with  no  con- 
scious repugnance  of  the  mind,  yet  with  a  tremor  of  the 
belly,  he  drew  near  the  body  of  his  victim.     The  human 
character    had    quite    departed.     Like    a    suit    half-stuffed 
with  bran,  the  limbs  lay  scattered,  the  trunk  doubled,  on  15 
the  floor;    and  yet  the  thing  repelled  him.     Although  so 
dingy  and  inconsiderable  to  the  eye,  he  feared  it  might 
have  more  significance  to  the  touch.     He  took  the  body 
by  the  shoulders,  and  turned  it  on  its  back.     It  was  strangely 
light  and  supple,  and  the  limbs,  as  if  they  had  been  broken,  20 
fell  into  the  oddest  postures.     The  face  was  robbed  of  all 
expression;  but  it  was  as  pale  as  wax,  and  shockingly  smeared 
with  blood  about  one  temple.     That  was,  for  Markheim, 
the   one    displeasing    circumstance.     It    carried   him   back, 
upon  the  instant,  to  a  certain  fair  day  in  a  fishers'  village:  25 
a  gray  day,  a  piping  wind,  a  crowd  upon  the  street,  the 
blare  of  brasses,  the  booming  of  drums,  the  nasal  voice  of 
a  ballad  singer;    and  a  boy  going  to  and  fro,  buried  over 
head  in  the  crowd  and  divided  between  interest  and  fear, 
until,   coming  out   upon   the  chief  place  of  concourse,  he  30 
beheld  a  booth  and  a  great  screen  with  pictures,  dismally 
designed,  garishly  coloured:    Brownrigg  with  her  apprentice; 
the  Mannings  with   their  murdered  guest;    Weare  in  'the 
death-grip  of  Thurtell ;  and  a  score  besides  of  famous  crimes. 
The  thing  was  as  clear  as  an  illusion:    he  was  once  again 35 
that  little  boy;  he  was  looking  once  again,  and  with  the  same 
sense  of  physical  revolt,  at  these  vile  pictures;    he  was  still 


470  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

stunned  by  the  thumping  of  the  drums.  A  bar  of  that 
day's  music  returned  upon  his  memory;  and  at  that,  for 
the  first  time,  a  qualm  came  over  him,  a  breath  of  nausea, 
a  sudden  weakness  of  the  joints,  which  he  must  instantly 
5  resist  and  conquer. 

He  judged  it  more  prudent  to  confront  than  to  flee  from 
these  considerations;  looking  the  more  hardily  in  the  dead 
face,  bending  his  mind  to  realise  the  nature  and  greatness 
of  his  crime.     So  little  a  while  ago  that  face  had  moved  with 

I o  every  change  of  sentiment,  that  pale  mouth  had  spoken, 
that  body  had  been  all  on  fire  with  governable  energies;  and 
now,  and  by  his  act,  that  piece  of  life  had  been  arrested,  as 
the  horologist,  with  interjected  finger,  arrests  the  beating  of 
the  clock.     So  he  reasoned  in  vain;  he  could  rise  to  no  more 

1 5  remorseful  consciousness;  the  same  heart  which  had  shud- 
dered before  the  painted  effigies  of  crime,  looked  on  its 
reality  unmoved.  At  best,  he  felt  a  gleam  of  pity  for  one 
who  had  been  endowed  in  vain  with  all  those  faculties 
that  can  make  the  world  a  garden  of  enchantment,  one  who 

2ohad  never  lived  and  who  was  now  dead.  But  of  penitence, 
no,  not  a  tremor. 

With  that,  shaking  himself  clear  of  these  considerations, 
he  found  the  keys  and  advanced  towards  the  open  door 
of  the  shop.     Outside,  it  had  begun  to  rain  smartly;    and 

25  the  sound  of  the  shower  upon  the  roof  had  banished  silence. 
Like  some  dripping  cavern,  the  chambers  of  the  house  were 
haunted  by  an  incessant  echoing,  which  filled  the  ear  and 
mingled  with  the  ticking  of  the  clocks.  And,  as  Markheim 
approached  the  door,  he  seemed  to  hear,  in  answer  to  his 

30  own  cautious  tread,  the  steps  of  another  foot  withdrawing 
up  the  stair.  The  shadow  still  palpitated  loosely  on  the 
threshold.  He  threw  a  ton's  weight  of  resolve  upon  his 
muscles,  and  drew  back  the  door. 

The  faint,  foggy  daylight  glimmered  dimly  on  the  bare 

35 floor  and  stairs;  on  the  bright  suit  of  armour  posted,  halbert 
in  hand,  upon  the  landing;  and  on  the  dark  wood-carvings, 
and  framed  pictures  that  hung  against  the  yellow  panels 


MARKHEIM  471 

of  the  wainscot.  So  loud  was  the  beating  of  the  rain  through 
all  the  house  that,  in  Markheim's  ears,  it  began  to  be  dis- 
tinguished into  many  different  sounds.  Footsteps  and 
sighs,  the  tread  of  regiments  marching  in  the  distance, 
the  chink  of  money  in  the  counting,  and  the  creaking  of  s 
doors  held  stealthily  ajar,  appeared  to  mingle  with  the  patter 
of  the  drops  upon  the  cupola  and  the  gushing  of  the  water 
in  the  pipes.  The  sense  that  he  was  not  alone  grew  upon 
him  to  the  verge  of  madness.  On  every  side  he  was  haunted 
and  begirt  by  presences.  He  heard  them  moving  in  the  lo 
upper  chambers;  from  the  shop,  he  heard  the  dead  man 
getting  to  his  legs;  and  as  he  began  with  a  great  effort  to 
mount  the  stairs,  feet  fled  quietly  before  him  and  followed 
stealthily  behind.  If  he  were  but  deaf,  he  thought,  how 
tranquilly  he  would  possess  his  soul!  And  then  again,  15 
and  hearkening  with  ever  fresh  attention,  he  blessed  himself 
for  that  unresting  sense  which  held  the  outposts  and  stood 
a  trusty  sentinel  upon  his  life.  His  head  turned  continually 
on  his  neck;  his  eyes,  which  seemed  starting  from  their 
orbits,  scouted  on  every  side,  and  on  every  side  were  half-  20 
rewarded  as  with  the  tail  of  something  nameless  vanishing. 
The  four-and-twenty  steps  to  the  first  floor  were  four-and- 
twenty  agonies. 

On  that  first  storey,  the  doors  stood  ajar,  three  of  them 
like  three  ambushes,  shaking  his  nerves  like  the  throats  of  25 
cannon.     He    could   never   again,    he    felt,    be    sufficiently 
immured  and  fortified  from  men's  observing  eyes;  he  longed 
to  be  home,  girt   in   by  walls,   buried   among  bedclothes, 
and  invisible  to  all  but  God.     And  at  that  thought  he  won- 
dered a  little,  recollecting  tales  of  other  murderers  and  the  30 
fear  they  were  said  to  entertain  of  heavenly  avengers.     It 
was  not  so,  at  least,  with  him.     He  feared  the  laws  of  nature, 
lest,  in  their  callous  and  immutable  procedure,  they  should 
preserve  some  damning  evidence  of  his  crime.     He  feared 
tenfold    more,    with    a    slavish,    superstitious    terror,    some  35 
scission  in  the  continuity  of  man's  experience,  some  wilful 
illegality  of  nature.     He  played  a  game  of  skill,  depending 


472  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

on  the  rules,  calculating  consequence  from  cause;  and 
what  if  nature,  as  the  defeated  tyrant  overthrew  the  chess- 
board, should  break  the  mould  of  their  succession?  The 
like  had  befallen  Napoleon  (so  writers  said)  when  the  winter 

5  changed  the  time  of  its  appearance.  The  like  might  befall 
Markheim:  the  solid  walls  might  become  transparent  and 
reveal  his  doings  like  those  of  bees  in  a  glass  hive;  the  stout 
planks  might  yield  under  his  feet  like  quicksands  and 
detain  him  in   their  clutch;    ay,    and   there  were  soberer 

lo accidents  that  might  destroy  him:  if,  for  instance,  the  house 
should  fall  and  imprison  him  beside  the  body  of  his  victim; 
or  the  house  next  door  should  fly  on  fire,  and  the  firemen 
invade  him  from  all  sides.  These  things  e  feared;  and, 
in  a  sense,  these  things  might  be  called  the  hands  of  God 

15  reached  forth  against  sin.  But  about  God  himself  he  was 
at  ease;  his  act  was  doubtless  exceptional,  but  so  were  his 
excuses,  which  God  knew;  it  was  there,  and  not  among 
men,  that  he  felt  sure  of  justice. 

When  he  had  got  safe  into  the  drawing-room,  and  shut  the 

20  door  behind  him,  he  was  aware  of  a  respite  from  alarms. 
The  room  was  quite  dismantled,  uncarpeted  besides,  and 
strewn  with  packing  cases  and  incongruous  furniture; 
several  great  pier-glasses,  in  which  he  beheld  himself  at 
various  angles,  Hke  an  actor  on  a  stage;    many  pictures, 

25  framed  and  unframed,  standing,  with  their  faces  to  the  wall; 
a  fine  Sheraton  sideboard,  a  cabinet  of  marquetry,  and 
a  great  old  bed,  with  tapestry  hangings.  The  windows 
opened  to  the  floor;  but  by  great  good  fortune  the  lower 
part  of  the  shutters  had  been  closed,  and  this  concealed  him 

30  from  the  neighbours.  Here,  then,  Markheim  drew  in  a  pack- 
ing case  before  the  cabinet,  and  began  to  search  among  the 
keys.  It  was  a  long  business,  for  there  were  many;  and  it 
was  irksome,  besides;  for,  after  all,  there  might  be  nothing 
in  the  cabinet,  and  time  was  on  the  wing.     But  the  closeness 

35  of  the  occupation  sobered  him.  With  the  tail  of  his  eye  he 
saw  the  door — even  glanced  at  it  from  time  to  time  directly 
like   a    besieged    commander   pleased    to   verify    the   good 


MARKHEIM  473 

estate  of  his  defences.  But  in  truth  he  was  at  peace.  The 
rain  falling  in  the  street  sounded  natural  and  pleasant. 
Presently,  on  the  other  side,  the  notes  of  a  piano  were  wakened 
to  the  music  of  a  hymn,  and  the  voices  of  many  children 
took  up  the  air  and  words.  How  stately,  how  comfortable  5 
was  the  melody!  How  fresh  the  youthful  voices!  Mark- 
heim  gave  ear  to  it  smilingly,  as  he  sorted  out  the  keys;  and 
his  mind  was  thronged  with  answerable  ideas  and  images; 
church-going  children  and  the  pealing  of  the  high  organ; 
children  afield,  bathers  by  the  brookside,  ramblers  on  the  ^° 
brambly  common,  kite-flyers  in  the  windy  and  cloud-navi- 
gated sky;  and  then,  at  another  cadence  of  the  hymn, 
back  again  to  church,  and  the  somnolence  of  summer  Sun- 
days, and  the  high  genteel  voice  of  the  parson  (which  he 
smiled  a  little  to  recall)  and  the  painted  Jacobean  tombs,  and  ^5 
the  dim  lettering  of  the  Ten  Commandments  in  the  chancel. 

And  as  he  sat  thus,  at  once  busy  and  absent,  he  was 
startled  to  his  feet.  A  flash  of  ice,  a  flash  of  fire,  a  bursting 
gush  of  blood,  went  over  him,  and  then  he  stood  trans- 
fixed and  thrilling.  A  step  mounted  the  stair  slowly  and  20 
steadily,  and  presently  a  hand  was  laid  upon  the  knob, 
and  the  lock  clicked,  and  the  door  opened. 

Fear  held  Markheim  in  a  vice.  What,  to  expect  he  knew 
not,  whether  the  dead  man  walking,  or  the  official  ministers 
of  human  justice,  or  some  chance  witness  blindly  stumbling  25 
in  to  consign  him  to  the  gallows.  But  when  a  face  was 
thrust  into  the  aperture,  glanced  round  the  room,  looked 
at  him,  nodded  and  smiled  as  if  in  friendly  recognition,  and 
then  withdrew  again,  and  the  door  closed  behind  it,  his 
fear  broke  loose  from  his  control  in  a  hoarse  cry.  At  the  3° 
sound  of  this  the  visitant  returned. 

"  Did  you  call  me?"    he  asked  pleasantly,  and  with,  that 
he  entered  the  room  and  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

Markheim   stood   and  gazed   at   him   with   all   his   eyes. 
Perhaps  there  was  a  film  upon  his  sight,  but  the  outlines  of  35 
the  newcomer  seemed  to  change  and  waver  Uke  those  of  the 
idols  in  the  wavering  candle-light  of  the  shop;  and  at  times 


474        ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

he  thought  he  knew  him;   and  at  times  h5  thought  he  bore 
a  likeness  to  himself;  and  always  like  a  lump  of  hving  terror, 
there  lay  in  his  bosom  the  conviction  that  this  thing  was  not 
of  the  earth  and  not  of  God. 
'  s     And  yet  the  creature  had  a  strange  air  of  the  common- 
place, as  he  stood  looking  on  Markheim  with  a  smile;   and 
when  he  added,  "  You  are  looking  for  the  money,  I  beUeve?" 
it  was  in  the  tones  of  everyday  politeness. 
Markheim  made  no  answer, 
lo     "  I  should  warn  you,"  resumed  the  other,  "  that  the  maid 
has  left  her  sweetheart  earlier  than  usual  and  will  soon  be 
here.     If  Mr.  Markheim  be  found  in  this  house,  I  need  not 
describe  to  him  the  consequences." 
"  You  know  me?"  cried  the  murderer. 
15     The  visitor  smiled.     "  You  have  long  been  a  favourite  of 
mine,"  he  said;  "  and  I  have  long  observed  and  often  sought 
to  help  you." 

"  What  are  you?"    cried  Markheim;    "  the  devil?" 
"  What  I  may  be,"  returned  the  other,  "  cannot  affect  the 
20 service  I  propose  to  render  you." 

"  It  can,"  cried  Markheim;  "  it  does!  Be  helped  by 
you?  No,  never;  not  by  you!  You  do  not  know  me  yet; 
thank  God,  you  do  not  know  me!" 

''  I  know  you,"  replied  the  visitant,  with  a  sort  of  kind 
25  severity  or  rather  firmness.     "  I  know  you  to  the  soul." 

"  Know  me!  "  cried  Markheim.  "  Who  can  do  so?  My 
life  is  but  a  travesty  and  slander  on  myself.  I  have  lived 
to  belie  my  nature.  All  men  do;  all  men  are  better  than 
this  disguise  that  grows  about  and  stifles  them.  You  see 
30  each  dragged  away  by  life,  like  one  whom  bravos  have 
seized  and  muffled  in  a  cloak.  If  they  had  their  own  con- 
trol— if  you  could  see  their  faces,  they  would  be  altogether 
different,  they  would  shine  out  for  heroes  and  saints!  I 
am  worse  than  most;  myself  is  more  overlaid;  my  excuse 
35  is  known  to  me  and  God.  But,  had  I  the  time,  I  could 
disclose  myself." 

"  To  me?"  inquired  the  visitant. 


MARKHEIM  475 

"  To  you  before  all,"  returned  the  murderer.  "  I  supposed 
you  were  intelligent.  I  thought — since  you  exist — you 
would  prove  a  reader  of  the  heart.  And  yet  you  would 
propose  to  judge  me  by  my  acts!  Think  of  it;  my  acts! 
I  was  born  and  I  have  lived  in  a  land  of  giants;  giants  have  5 
dragged  me  by  the  wrists  since  I  was  born  out  of  my  mother — 
the  giants  of  circumstance.  And  you  would  judge  me  by 
my  acts!  But  can  you  not  look  within?  Can  you  not  under- 
stand that  evil  is  hateful  to  me?  Can  you  not  see  within  me 
the  clear  writing  of  conscience,  never  blurred  by  any  wilful  10 
sophistry,  although  too  often  disregarded?  Can  you  not 
read  me  for  a  thing  that  surely  must  be  common  as  humanity 
— the  unwilling  sinner?" 

"  All  this  is  very  feelingly  expressed,"  was  the  reply,  "  but 
it  regards  me  not.  These  points  of  consistency  are  beyond  15 
my  province,  and  I  care  not  in  the  least  by  what  compulsion 
you  may  have  been  dragged  away,  so  as  you  are  but  carried 
in  the  right  direction.  But  time  flies;  the  servant  delays, 
looking  in  the  faces  of  the  crowd  and  at  the  pictures  on  the 
hoardings,  but  still  she  keeps  moving  nearer;  and  remember,  20 
it  is  as  if  the  gallows  itself  was  striding  towards  you  through 
the  Christmas  streets!  Shall  I  help  you;  I,  who  know  all? 
Shall  I  tell  you  where  to  find  the  money?" 

"  For  what  price?"    asked  Markheim. 

"  I  offer  you  the  service  for  a  Christmas  gift,"  returned  the  25 
other. 

Markheim  could  not  refrain  from  smiling  with  a  kind  of 
bitter  triumph.  "  No,"  said  he,  "  I  will  take  nothing  at 
your  hands;  if  I  were  dying  of  thirst,  and  it  was  your  hand 
that  put  the  pitcher  to  my  lips,  I  should  find  the  courage  to  30 
refuse.  It  may  be  credulous,  but  I  will  do  nothing  to  com- 
mit myself  to  evil." 

"  I  have  no  objection  to  a  death-bed  repentance,"  observed 
the  visitant. 

"  Because  you  disbelieve  their  efficacy!"  Markheim  cried. 35 

"  I  do  not  say  so,"  returned  the  other;    "  but  I  look  on 
these  things  from  a  different  side,  and  when  the  life  is  done 


476  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

my  interest  falls.  The  man  has  lived  to  serve  me,  to  spread 
black  looks  under  colour  of  religion,  or  to  sow  tares  in  the 
wheat-field,  as  you  do,  in  a  course  of  weak  compliance  with 
desire.  Now  that  he  draws  so  near  to  his  deliverance,  he 
Scan  add  but  one  act  of  service — to  repent,  to  die  smiling, 
and  thus  to  build  up  in  confidence  and  hope  the  more 
timorous  of  my  surviving  followers.  I  am  not  so  hard  a 
master.  Try  me.  Accept  my  help.  Please  yourself  in 
life  as  you  have  done  hitherto;   please  yourself  more  amply, 

nospread  your  elbows  at  the  board;  and  when  the  night  begins 
to  fall  and  the  curtains  to  be  drawn,  I  tell  you,  for  your 
greater  comfort,  that  you  will  find  it  even  easy  to  compound 
your  quarrel  with  your  conscience,  and  to  make  a  truckling 
peace  with  God.     I  came  but  now  from  such  a  death-bed, 

15  and  the  room  was  full  of  sincere  mourners,  listening  to  the 
man's  last  words:  and  when  I  looked  into  that  face,  which 
had  been  set  as  a  flint  against  mercy,  I  found  it  smiling 
with  hope." 

"  And  do  yoa,  then,  suppose  me  such  a  creature?"  asked 

20  Markheim.  "  Do  you  think  I  have  no  more  generous 
aspirations  than  to  sin,  and  sin,  and  sin,  and,  at  last,  sneak 
into  heaven?  My  heart  rises  at  the  thought.  Is  this, 
then,  your  experience  of  mankind?  or  is  it  because  you 
find  me  with  red  hands  that  you  presume  such  baseness? 

25  and  is  this  crime  of  murder  indeed  so  impious  as  to  dry 
up  the  very  springs  of  good?" 

"  Murder  is  to  me  no  special  category,"  replied  the  other. 
"  All  sins  are  murder,  even  as  all  life  is  war.  I  behold  your 
race,  like  starving  mariners  on  a  raft,  plucking  crusts  out 

30  of  the  hands  of  famine  and  feeding  on  each  other's  lives. 
I  follow  sins  beyond  the  moment  of  their  acting;  I  find  in 
all  that  the  last  consequence  is  death;  and  to  my  eyes,  the 
pretty  maid  who  thwarts  her  mother  with  such  taking  graces 
on  a  question  of  a  ball,  drips  no  less  visibly  with  human  gore 

35  than  such  a  murderer  as  yourself.  Do  I  say  that  I  follow 
sins?  I  follow  virtues  also;  they  differ  not  by  the  thickness 
of  a  nail,  they  are  both  scythes  for  the  reaping  angel  of 


MARKHEIM  477 

Death.  Evil,  for  which  I  live,  consists  not  in  action,  but 
in  character.  The  bad  man  is  dear  to  me;  not  the  bad 
act,  whose  fruits,  if  we  could  follow  them  far  enough  down 
the  hurtling  cataract  of  the  ages,  might  yet  be  found  more 
blessed  than  those  of  the  rarest  virtues.  And  it  is  not  s 
because  you  have  killed  a  dealer,  but  because  you  are  Mark- 
hcim,  that  I  offered  to  forward  your  escape." 

"  I  will  lay  my  heart  open  to  you,"  answered  Markheim. 
"  This  crime  on  which  you  find  me  is  my  last.  On  my  way 
to  it  I  have  learned  many  lessons;  itself  is  a  lesson,  a  mo-  lo 
mentous  lesson.  Hitherto  I  have  been  driven  with  revolt 
to  what  I  would  not;  I  was  a  bond-slave  to  poverty,  driven 
and  scourged.  There  are  robust  virtues  that  can  stand  in 
these  temptations ;  mine  was  not  so :  I  had  a  thirst  of  pleasure. 
But  to-day,  and  out  of  this  deed,  I  pluck  both  warning  15 
and  riches ^both  the  power  and  a  fresh  resolve  to  be  myself. 
I  become  in  all  things  a  free  actor  in  the  world;  I  begin 
to  see  myself  all  changed,  these  hands  the  agents  of  good, 
this  heart  at  peace.  Something  comes  over  me  out  of 
the  past;  something  of  what  I  have  dreamed  on  Sabbath  20 
evenings  to  the  sound  of  the  church  organ,  of  what  I  fore- 
cast when  I  shed  tears  over  noble  books,  or  talked,  an 
innocent  child,  with  my  mother.  There  lies  my  life;  I 
have  wandered  a  few  years,  but  now  I  see  once  more  my 
city  of  destination."  25 

"  You  are  to  use  this  money  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  I 
think?"  remarked  the  visitor;  "  and  there,  if  I  mistake  not, 
you  have  already  lost  some  thousands?" 

"  Ah,"  said  Markheim,  "  but  this  time  I  have  a  sure 
thing."  30 

"  This  time,  again,  you  will  lose,"  replied  the  visitor, 
quietly.  v 

"  Ah,  but  I  keep  back  the  half!"    cried  Markheim. 

"  That  also  you  will  lose,"   said  the  other. 

The    sweat    started    upon     Markhcim's    brow.     "  Well,  35 
then,  what  matter?"    he  exclaimed.     "  Say  it  be  lost,  say 
I  am  plunged  again  in  poverty,  shall  one  part  of  me,  and  that 


478        ROBERT  LOUTS  STEVENSON 

the  worse,  continue  until  the  end  to  override  the  better? 
Evil  and  good  run  strong  in  me,  haling  me  both  ways.  I 
do  not  love  the  one  thing,  I  love  all.  I  can  conceive  great 
deeds,  renunciations,  martyrdoms;  and  though  I  be  fallen 
5  to  such  a  crime  as  murder,  pity  is  no  stranger  to  my  thoughts. 
I  pity  the  poor;  who  knows  their  trials  better  than  myself? 
I  pity  and  help  them;  I  prize  love,  I  love  honest  laughter; 
there  is  no  good  thing  nor  true  thing  on  earth  but  I  love  it 
from  my  heart.     And  are  my  vices  only  to  direct  my  life, 

loand  my  virtues  to  lie  without  effect,  like  some  passive  lum- 
ber of  the  mind?    Not  so;    good,  also,  is  a  spring  of  acts." 
But  the  visitant  raised  his  finger.     "  For  six-and-thirty 
years  that  you  have  been  in  this  world,"  said  he,  "  through 
many  changes  of  fortune  and  varieties  of  humour,  I  have 

IS  watched  you  steadily  fall.  Fifteen  years  ago  you  would 
have  started  at  a  theft.  Three  years  back  you  would  have 
blenched  at  the  name  of  murder.  Is  there  any  crime,  is 
there  any  cruelty  or  meanness,  from  which  you  still  recoil? — 
five  years  from  now  I  shall  detect  you  in  the  fact !  Downward, 

20 downward,  lies  your  way;  nor  can  anything  but  death  avail 
to  stop  you." 

"It  is  true,"  Markheim  said  huskily,  "  I  have  in  some 
degree  complied  with  evil.  But  it  is  so  with  all:  the  very 
saints,  in  the  mere  exercise  of  living,  grow  less  dainty,  and 

25  take  on  the  tone  of  their  surroundings." 

"  I  will  propound  to  you  one  simple  question,"  said  the 
other;  "  and  as  you  answer,  I  shall  read  to  you  your  moral 
horoscope.  You  have  grown  in  many  things  more  lax; 
possibly  you  do  right  to  be  so;    and  at  any  account,  it  is 

30  the  same  with  all  men.  But  granting  that,  are  you  in  any 
one  particular,  however  trifling,  more  difiicult  to  please 
with  your  own  conduct,  or  do  you  go  in  all  things  with  a 
looser  rein?" 

"  In  any  one?"    repeated   Markheim,   with   an   anguish 

35 of  consideration.  "  No,"  he  added,  with  despair,  "  in  none! 
I  have  gone  down  in  all." 

"  Then,"  said  the  visitor,  "  content  yourself  with  what 


MARKHEIM  479 

you  are,  for  you  will  never  change;   and  the  words  of  your 
part  on  this  stage  are  irrevocably  written  down." 

Markheim  stood  for  a  long  while  silent,  and  indeed  it 
was  the  visitor  who  first  broke  the  silence.  "  That  being 
so,"  he  said,  "  shall  I  show  you  the  mone)'?" 

"  And  grace?"    cried  Markheim. 

"  Have  you  not  tried  it?"  returned  the  other.  "  Two 
or  three  years  ago,  did  I  not  see  you  on  the  platform  of 
revival  meetings,  and  was  not  your  voice  the  loudest  in  the 
hymn?"  lo 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Markheim;  "  and  I  see  clearly  what 
remains  for  me  by  way  of  duty.  I  thank  you  for  these 
lessons  from  my  soul;  my  eyes  are  opened,  and  I  behold 
myself  at  last  for  what  I  am." 

At  this  moment,  the   sharp   note  of  the  door-bell  rang  15 
through  the  house;    and  the  visitant,  as  though  this  were 
some  concerted  signal  for  which  he  had  been  waiting,  changed 
at  once  in  his  demeanour. 

"  The  maid!  "  he  cried.     "  She  has  returned,  as  I  fore- 
warned you,  and  there  is  now  before  you  one  more  difficult  20 
passage.     Her  master,  you  must  say,  is  ill;    you  must  let 
her  in,  with  an  assured  but  rather  serious  countenance — 
no  smiles,  no  overacting,  and  I  promise  you  success!     Once 
the  girl  within,  and  the  door  closed,  the  same  dexterity 
that  has  already  rid  you  of  the  dealer  will  relieve  you  of  this  25 
last  danger  in  your    path.     Thenceforward  you   have  the 
whole  evening — the  whole  night,  if  needful — to  ransack  the 
treasures   of   the   house   and    to    make   good   your   safety. 
This  is  help  that  comes  to  you  with  the  mask  of  danger. 
Up!"  he  cried;    "  u]),   friend;    your  life  hangs   trembling  30 
in  the  scales;   up,  and  act!  " 

Markheim  steadily  regarded  his  counsellor.  "  If  I  be 
condemned  to  evil  acts,"  he  said,  "  there  is  still  one  door 
of  freedom  open — I  can  cease  from  action.  If  my  Hfe  be 
an  ill  thing,  I  can  lay  it  down.  Though  I  be,  as  you  say  35 
truly,  at  the  beck  of  every  small  temptation,  I  can  yet,  by 
one  decisive  gesture,  place  myself  beyond  the  reach  of  all. 


480  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

My  love  of  good  is  damned  to  barrenness;  it  may,  and  let 
it  be!  But  I  have  still  my  hatred  of  evil;  and  from  that, 
to  your  galling  disappointment,  you  shall  see  that  I  can 
draw  both  energy  and  courage." 
5  The  features  of  the  visitor  began  to  undergo  a  wonderful 
and  lovely  change:  they  brightened  and  softened  with  a 
tender  triumph;  and,  even  as  they  brightened,  faded  and 
disHmned.  But  Markheim  did  not  pause  to  watch  or 
understand  the  transformation.     He  opened  the  door  and 

lowent  downstairs  very  slowly,  thinking  to  himself.  His 
past  went  soberly  before  him;  he  beheld  it  as  it  was,  ugly 
and  strenuous  like  a  dream,  random  as  chance-medley — 
a  scene  of  defeat.  Life,  as  he  thus  reviewed  it,  tempted 
him  no  longer;   but  on  the  further  side  he  perceived  a  quiet 

IS  haven  for  his  bark.  He  paused  in  the  passage,  and  looked 
into  the  shop,  where  the  candle  still  burned  by  the  dead 
body.  It  was  strangely  silent.  Thoughts  of  the  dealer 
swarmed  into  his  mind,  as  he  stood  gazing.  And  then  the 
bell  once  more  broke  out  into  impatient  clamour. 

20  He  confronted  the  maid  upon  the  threshold  with  some- 
thing like  a  smile. 

"  You  had  better  go  for  the  police,"  said  he;    "  I  have 
killed  your  master." 


SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS 

WITH    SOME    TOPICS    FOR    DISCUSSION    AND    FOR 
COMPOSITION 

(Note. — The  selections  named  below  are  as  a  rule  short;  and,  since 
they  are  contained  in  standard  works  of  modern  prose,  they  are  access- 
ible in  the  average  library.  Page  numbers  in  parentheses  refer  to 
the  present  volume.) 

I.  The  Person.'Vl  Life 

(a)  William  Hazlitt,  On  Personal  Character,  in  "  The 
Plain  Speaker  ":  How  the  main  thesis  differs  from  that  in 
Emerson's  SelJ-Reliance  (page  i).  {b)  Walter  Pater, 
Diaphaneiie,  in  "  Miscellaneous  Studies  ":  The  substance 
of  the  ideal  personality  here  delineated,  and  how  it  differs  s 
from  the  type  suggested  by  Emerson,  (c)  Matthew  Arnold, 
Doing  as  One  Likes,  or  Hebraism  and  Hellenism,  in  "  Culture 
and  Anarchy  ":  The  main  principles  of  personal  endeavor 
suggested  in  either  of  these  essays,  {d)  Plutarch,  Marcus 
Cato,  in  "  Lives,"  Vol.  II  of  Clough's  translation:  i.  Cato's  lo 
Self-Reliance.  2.  Cato's  type  of  character  in  American 
public  life,  {e)  Walter  Scott,  fragment  of  Autobiography, 
in  Lpckhart's  "  Life  of  Scott:  "  A  comparison  of  Scott's 
early  training  with  Ruskin's.  See  also  the  early  chapters 
of  (/)  Trevclyan's  "Life  of  Macaulay  "  and  {g)  Froude'sis 
"  Life  of  Carlyle."  (//)  Charles  Darwin,  Autobiography, 
in  "  Life  and  Letters:  "  i.  The  change  which  came  over 
Darwin's  attitude  toward  literature.  2.  The  contrast  be- 
tween Dar\^  ill's  type  of  mind  and  Lamb's  as  revealed  in 
Old  China  Q^age  40)  and  Pater's  essay  (page  437).  20 

481 


482  SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS 


II.  Education 

(a)  R.  W.  Emerson,  The  American  Scholar,  in  "  Nature, 
Addresses,  Lectures:  "  The  main  points  in  the  view  here 
given  of  education.  2.  Certain  considerations,  somewhat 
neglected  by  Emerson,  but  developed  by  Newman  (page 
552).  (b)  Woodrow  Wilson,  The  Training  of  Intellect  (an 
address  to  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Yale  University) : 
How  far  your  own  course  of  study  is  fulfilling  the  require- 
ments here  set  forth,  (c)  William  HazHtt,  On  Applica- 
tion to  Study,  in  "  The  Plain  Speaker:  "    i.  Hazlitt's  view 

10  of  the  study  of  composition.  2.  How  the  principles  of 
application  which  he  advocates  may  be  applied  to  some 
other  study  in  which  you  are  interested,  (d)  T.  H.  Huxley, 
Science  and  Culture,  in  "  Science  and  Education: "  i. 
How  far  the  principles  here  set  forth  bear  out  Huxley's 

15  definition  of  education  (page  47).  2.  The  main  point 
at  issue  between  Huxley  and  Arnold  (Arnold's  essay,  page 
75,  is  a  reply  to  Huxley),  and  your  own  view  of  the  matter 
drawn  from  your  own  experience,  (e)  J.  S.  Mill,  Inaugural 
Address  at    St.    Andrew's,    in    "  Dissertations,"    Vol.    IV: 

20 Mill's  main  contentions  as  to  the  exact  purpose  and  \alue 
of  the  study  of  language  and  literature  in  universities. 
(J)  H.  D.  Thoreau,  Reading,  in  "  Walden:"  The  author's 
views  in  regard  to  reading  not  done  in  connection  with 
school  work,     (g)  A.  G.  Balfour,  Pleasures  of  Reading,  in 

25  "  Essays  and  Addresses  "  (written  as  a  reply  to  Harrison's 
claims,  page  97):  The  main  points  at  issue  between 
Harrison  and  Balfour,  and  your  own  view  of  the  matter. 
(h)  John  Lubbock,  The  Choice  of  Books,  in  "  The  Pleasures 
of  Life  :  "   Whether  this   essay  goes   to  support  Harrison's 

30  or  Balfour's  view,  and  how.  (/")  Woodrow  Wilson,  essays 
in  "  Mere  Literature."  (7)  John  Ruskin,  Sesame  and 
Lilies,  (k)  Consult  several  biographies  of  great  men — for 
example,  Morley's  Gladstone,  Froude's  Carlyle,  Darwin's 
Life,  Huxley's  Life — and  make  a  comparative  study  of  their 

35  early  reading. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS  483 


III.  Recreation  and  Travels 

(a)  George  Santayana,  on  Work  and  Play,  sections  3 
and  following,  in  "  The  Sense  of  Beauty,"  Pa.rt  I:  1.  The 
distinction  between  working  and  playing.  2.  The  relation 
between  the  sense  of  beauty  and  the  sense  of  pleasure,  (b) 
William  Hazlitt,  On  Living  to  One's  Self,  in  "  Table  Talk:  "  5 
I.  The  general  method  of  enjoying  life,  which  is  developed 
here  and  illustrated  further  in  On  Going  a  Journey 
(page  116).  (c)  R.  L.  Stevenson,  Walking  Tours,  in 
"  Virginibus  Puerisque;  "  and  Roads,  in  "  Essays  of  Travel:  " 
I.  The  several  ways  in  which  these  essays  reflect  Hazlitt's  10 
views;  the  points  which  are  peculiar  to  Stevenson.  2.  How 
far  your  own  methods  of  securing  outdoor  enjoyment  are 
in  accord  with  Hazlitt's  and  Stevenson's,  (d)  W.  H. 
Hudson,  Idle  Days,  in  "  Idle  Days  in  Patagonia  : " 
What  the  author's  so-called  idleness  consisted  in.  (e)  15 
Francis  Parkman,  Hunting  Indians,  in  "  The  Oregon 
Trail:  "  The  mental  experiences  of  the  writer  himself  in 
the  course  of  the  exploit  he  describes. 

IV.  Social  Life  and  Manners 

(a)  R.  W.  Emerson,  Culture,  in  "  The  Conduct  of  Life:  " 
The  relation   which  the  central  thought  bears  to  that  of  20 
Behavior  (page  154).     (b)  Matthew  Arnold,  Sweetness  and 
Light,    in  "  Culture  and  Anarchy:  "   i.  The  chief  motives 
and    characteristics    of    culture.     2.  The    relation    between 
culture    and     bodily    vigor.     3.  The    "  Social    Idea."     4. 
A  comparison  of  Emerson's  and  Arnold's  attitude  toward  25 
culture,     (c)  R.  W.  Emerson,  Manners,  in  "  Essays,  Second 
Series."     How    Emerson's    view    of    the    relation    between 
manners    and    fashion    supplements    Spencer's    contention 
(page  172).     {d)  Henri  Bergson,  the  first  part  of  Chapter  I 
in   "Laughter:"    The   function  of  laughter   in    social  life.  30 
(e)  William  Hazlitt,  On  the  Spirit  of  Obligations,  in  "  The 


484  SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS 

Plain  Dealer: "  The  relation  between  good  sense  and 
good  nature.  (/)  R.  L.  Stevenson,  The  Truth  of  Intercourse, 
in  "  Virginibus  Puerisque:  "  The  complex  meaning  of 
truthfulness  in  social  life,  {g)  W.  M.  Thackeray,  George  II, 
sin  "The  Four  Georges:"  The  chief  characteristics  of 
Georgian  society. 

V.  Public  Affairs 

(a)  Plato,  The  Apology,  in  the  "  Dialogues,"  translated  by 
Jowett,  and  by  others:  i.  The  part  played  by  Socrates  in 
the  public  life  of  Athens.     2.  What  function  Socrates  could 

10  fulfil  in  American  public  life,  (b)  J.  S.  Mill,  Civilization,  in 
"Dissertations  and  Discussions,"  Vol.  I:  The  ill  effects  of 
civilization,  and  how  they  may  be  overcome,  (c)  Henry 
George,  The  Persistence  of  Poverty  amid  Advancing  Wealth, 
in  Book  V  of  "  Progress  and  Poverty:"  George's  exposition 

15  of  the  problem  tested  by  your  own  experience,  (d)  J.  S. 
Mill,  Of  the  Dangers  to  which  Representative  Government  is 
Liable,  in  "  Considerations  on  Representative  Government:" 
The  extent  to  which  Mill's  contentions  apply  to  the  United 
States.      (e)  Josiah    Royce,    Some   American   Problems,   in 

20 "The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty:"  i.  The  general  solution 
proposed.  2.  How  this  solution  might  be  applied  to  some 
public  or  college  problem  you  know   of. 

VI.  Science 

(c)  Herbert  Spencer,  The  Genesis  of  Science,  in  "Illus- 
trations of  Universal    Progress:"    The   essential  nature  of 

25  sicence.  (b)  T.  H.  Huxley,  The  Method  of  Scientific  Investiga- 
tion, in  "  Man's  Place  in  Nature:"  The  relation  between 
scientific  and  everyday  modes  of  thinking,  (c)  John 
Tyndall,  On  the  nature  and  function  of  the  sun,  in  Chapter 
XIV  of  "  Heat  as  a  Mode  of  ]\Iotion:"  The  general   rela- 

3otion  between  the  facts  presented  by  Tyndall  and  those 
presented  in   The  Physical  Basis  of  Life  (page  240).     {d) 


SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS  485 

A.  R.  Wallace,  Darwinism  as  Applied  to  Man,  in  "  Darwin- 
ism": A  comparison  of  this  piece,  in  respect  to  aim  and 
method,  with  Darwin's  Mental  Powers  of  Men  and  Animals 
(page  263).  (e)  Charles  Darwin,  On  the  (lower  of  the  ladies' 
slipper,  in  Chapter  VIII  of  "  Fertilization  of  Orchids  by 
Insects."  (/)  T.  H.  Huxley,  On  the  Formation  of  Coal, 
in  "  Discourses  Biological." 

VII.  Nature 


10 


{a)  R.  W.  Emerson,  .Va/ifre,  in  "Essays,  Second  Series:" 
The  effect  of  nature  on  the  human  mind,  {h)  H.  D.  Thoreau, 
Spring,  in  "  Walden:"  i.  The  formative  principle  in  nature. 
2.  A  comparison  of  Thoreau's  attitude  toward  nature, 
as  revealed  here  and  in  "  Walden  Pond  "  (page  306),  with  15 
that  of  Emerson,  (c)  John  Burroughs,  The  Pastoral  Bees 
in  "  Locusts  and  Wild  Honey:"  The  communal  Hfe  of  the 
bees,  {d)  W.  H.  Hudson,  The  Perfume  of  an  Evening  Prim- 
rose, in  "Idle  Days  in  Patagonia:"  The  association  of 
phenomena  of  nature  with  events  in  one's  Ufe.  {e)  LesUe  20 
Stephen,  Sunset  on  Mont  Blanc,  in  "  The  Playground  of 
Europe:"  An  analysis  of  the  circumstances  which  com- 
bined to  give  this  sunset  its  peculiar  interest.  (/)  John 
Ruskin,  descriptions  of  water,  sky,  clouds,  and  foliage  in 
"  Modern  Painters,"  Vol.  I  (look  up  passages  other  than  25 
those  selected  for  the  present  volume,  page  325):  in  each 
case,  distinguish  the  chief  beautiful  effect  which  the  author 
wishes  to  bring  out. 

VIII.  Conduct  and  Inner  Life         -^^ 

(a)  William  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  in  "  The  Will  to 
Believe,  and  other  Essays:"  The  bearing  of  religious 
conviction  on  voUtion  and  conduct,  (b)  Josiah  Royce, 
Loyalty  to  Loyalty,  in  "The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty:" 35 
I.  The  exact  meaning  of  the  title.  2.  How  the  main  thesis 
is   fundamental   for   Loyalty   and   Insight    (page   365).     (c) 


486  SUPPLEMENTARY  READINGS 

R.  W.  Emerson,  The  Over-Soul,  in  "  Essays,  First  Series:" 
I.  How  the  conception  here  developed  appears  ugain  in 
other  essays  of  Emerson  which  you  have  read.  2.  How- 
Emerson's  attitude  toward  spiritual  truth  differs  from  that 
5  of  James;  see  (a),  above.  (</)  Josiah  Royce,  What  is  Vital 
in  Christianity?  in  "  William  James  and  Other  Essays:" 
The  central  thought  as  compared  with  Seeley's  (page  351). 
(e)  George  Santayana,  The  Poetry  of  Christian  Dogma,  in 
"  Poetr}'  and  ReUgion:"    The  full  significance  of  the  title. 

i°(/)  J-  R-  Seeley,  Christ's  Royalty,  in  "  Ecce  Homo:"  The 
significance  of  the  term  "  King  "  as  applied  to  Christ. 
{g)  G.  L.  Dickinson,  The  Greek  View  of  Religion,  in  "  The 
Greek  View  of  Life:"  i.  How  the  Greek  differs  from  the 
Christian   view.     2.  The   most   admirable    features   of   the 

15  Greek  view,  (h)  Walter  Pater,  A  Study  of  Dionysus,  in 
"  Greek  Studies:"  What  Dionysus  was  symbohc  of.  (f) 
WiUiam  James,  Habit,  in  "  Psychology,"  Vol.  I:  The 
significance  of  habits,  tested  by  your  own  experience. 
(j)  W.    E.    H.    Lecky,    The   Management   of  Character,   in 

20 "The  Map  of  Life:"  Specific  methods  by  which  one  may 
mold  one's  own  character. 

IX.  Literature  .a.nd  Art 

(a)  George  Santayana,  Art  and  Happiness,  in  "  The  Life 
of  Reason,"  Vol.  IV:  i.  What  is  Art?  2.  The  position 
of  Hterature  among  the  arts.     3.  What  art  needs  at  the 

25  present  day.  (b)  Walter  Bagehot,  On  Wordsworth,  in 
"  Essay  on  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning:" 
The  nature  of  pure  art.  (c)  Matthew  Arnold,  Wordsworth, 
in  "  Essays  in  Criticism:"  A  comparison  of  Arnold's 
main  thesis  in  regard  to  Wordsworth  with  Bagehot's;  see 

30  (b)  above,  (d)  G.  H.  Lewes,  The  Principle  of  Sincerity,  in 
"  The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature:'"  The  relation 
between  sincerity  and  success  in  hterature.  (e)  Thomas 
Carlyle,  Dante,  in  ''On  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship:" 
I.  The   chief  differences  between   Dante  and   Shakespeare 


SUPPLEMENTARY  HEADINGS  487 

(see  page  423).  2.  How  the  principle  of  sincerity  (see  (d) 
above)  is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Dante.  (/)  P.  B.  Shelley, 
Defence  of  Poetry:  A  comparison  of  Shelley's  attitude 
toward  poetry  with  Bradley's  (page  389).  (g)  G.  L.  Dickin- 
son, Chapter  IV  in  the  "  Greek  View  of  Life  "  (the  part  5 
preceding  the  section  reprinted  in  the  present  volume): 
How  the  principles  determining  the  nature  of  Greek  tragedy 
appear  also  in  the  other  Greek  arts,  (h)  S.  H.  Butcher, 
What  we  Owe  to  Greece,  in  "  Some  Aspects  of  Greek  Genius:" 
Ideals  we  have  inherited  from  the  Greeks,  (f)  A.  C.  10 
Bradley,  The  Substance  of  Shakespearean  Tragedy,  in  "  Shakes- 
spearean  Tragedy:"  The  conception  of  the  relations  between 
good  and  evil  which  appears  in  Shakespeare's  tragedies. 
(j)  Sophocles,  Oedipus  Rex  (translated  by  Gilbert  Murray) : 
A  comparison  of  the  theme  of  this  tragedy  with  the  theme  i- 
of  Shakespeare's  Richard  III,  Macbeth,  or  Lear. 


Longmans'  English  Classics 

Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum  and  Other  Poems. 

Edited  by  Ashley  H.  Thorndike,  Professor  of  English  in 
Columbia   University.     $0.25.      [For   Reading.] 
Browning's  Select  Poems. 

Edited  by  Percival  Chubb,  formerly  Director  of  English, 
Ethical  Culture  School,  New  York.    $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

Edited  by  Charles  Sears  Baldwin,  Professor  of  Rhetoric 
in  Yale  University.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America. 

Edited    by    Albert    S.    C'ook,    Professor    of    the    English 
Language    and    Literature    in    Columbia    University.     $0.25. 
[For  Study.] 
Byron's  Childe  Harold,  Canto  IV,  and  Prisoner  of  Chilloii. 
Edited  by   H.  E.   Coblentz,  Principal  of  The  South   Divi- 
sion High  School,  Milwaukee,  Wis.    $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Carlyle's  Essay  on  Burns. 

Edited    by    Wilson    Farrand,    Principal    of    the    Newark 
Academy,  Newark,  N.  J.     $0.25.     [For  Study.] 
Coleridge's  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner. 

Edited    by    Herbert    Bates,    Brooklyn    Manual    Training 
High   School,   New  York.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Dickens's  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities. 

Edited    b)-    Frederick   William    Roe,    Assistant    Professor 
of    English,    Univ.    of    Wisconsin.      $0.30.      [For    Reading.] 
Franklin's  Autobiography. 

Edited    by    William    B.    Cairns,    Assistant    Professor    of 
American    Literature,    Univ.    of    Wisconsin.      $0.25.      [For 
Reading.] 
Gaskell's  Cranford. 

Edited  by  I-Vanklin  T.   Baker,   Professor  of  the   English 
Language    and    Literature   in    Teachers    College,   Columbia 
University.  $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
George  Eliot's  Silas  Marner. 

Edited  by   Robert   llcrrick.   Professor  of  English  in  the 
University  of  Chicago.     So. 25.      [For   Reading.] 
Goldsmith's  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

Edited  by  Mary  A.  Jordan,  Professor  of  English  Lan- 
guage and  Literature  in  Smith  College.  $0.25.  [For 
Readine.  I  ^ 

Gray's  Elegy  In  A  Country  Churchyard  and  Goldsmith's  The 
Deserted  Village. 

Edited  by  J.  F.  Hosic,  Head  of  the  Department  of  English, 
Chicago  Normal   School.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Huxley's  Autobiography  and  Selections  From  Lay  Sermons. 
Edited  liy  E.   H.  Kemper  McCnmb,  Head  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  English   in  the  Manual  Training  High  School,  In- 
dianapolis, Ind.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 


Longmans    English   Classics 


Irving's   Sketch  Book. 

With  an  Introduction  by  Brander  Matthews,  Professor  of 
Dramatic  Literature,  Columbia  University,  and  with  notes 
by  Armour  Caldwell,  A.B.     $0.30.     [For  Reading.] 
Lincoln,  Selections  From. 

Edited  by  Daniel  K.  Dodge,  Professor  of  English  in  the 
University  of  Illinois.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 

Lowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  and  Other  Poems. 

Edited  by  Allan  Abbott,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Eng- 
lish,  Horace    Mann    High   School,   Teachers   College,   New 
York  City.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Macaulay's  Essay  on  Lord  Clive. 

Edited  by  P.  C.  Farrar,  Instructor  of  English  in  Erasmus 
Hall  High  School,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.    $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Macaulay's  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  with  Ivry  and  The  Ar- 
mada. 

Edited  by  Nott  Flint,   late  Instructor  in  English  in  the 
University  of  Chicago.    $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Macaulay's  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson. 

Edited  by  Huber  Gray  Buehler,  Head-master,  Hotchkiss 
School,  Lakeville,  Conn.     $0.25.     [For  Study.] 
Macaulay's  Warren  Hastings. 

Edited    by    Samuel    M.    Tucker,    Professor    of    English, 
Brooklyn    Polytechnic    Institute.      $0.25.      [For    Reading.] 
Milton's  L'Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  Comus  and  Lycidas. 

Edited  by  William  P.  Trent,  Professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture  in   Columbia  University.     $0.25.      [For   Study,   "Lyci- 
das "  is  omitted.] 
Palgrave's  The  Golden  Treasury. 

Edited  by  Herbert  Bates,  of  the  Manual  Training  High 
School,  Brooklyn,  New  York  City.     $0.30.     [For  Reading.] 
Parkman's  The  Oregon  Trail. 

Edited  by  O.  B.  Sperlin,  Tacoma  High  School,  Washington. 
$0.30.    [For  Reading.] 
Scott's   Ivanhoe. 

Edited  by  Bliss  Perry,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in 
Harvard  University.     $0.30.     [For  Reading.] 
Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake. 

Edited  by  G.  R.  Carpenter,  late  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and 
English    Composition,    Columbia    Univers^t3^     $0.25.      [For 
Reading.] 
Scott's   Quentin  Durward. 

Edited  by  Mary  E.  Adams,  Head  of  the  Department  of 
English  in  the  Central  High  School,  Cleveland,  O.     $0.30. 
[For   Reading.] 
Shakspere's  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 

Edited  by  George  Pierce  Baker,  Professor  of  English  in 
Harvard   University.     $0.25.      [For    Reading.] 


Longmans    English  Classics 


Shakspere's  As  You  Like  It. 

With  an  Introduction  by  Barrett  Wendell,  A.B.,  Professor 
of  English   in    Harvard   University;   and   Notes  by  William 
Lyon   Phelps,  Lampson  Professor  of  English  Literature  in 
Yale  University.     $0.25.     |  I<"or  Reading.] 
Shakspere's  Macbeth. 

Edited  by  John  Matthews  Manly,  Professor  and  Head  of 
the   Department  of  English  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 
$0.25.      [For  Study.] 
Shakspere's  Julius  Caesar. 

Edited  by  George  C.  D.  Odell,  Professor  of  English  in  Co- 
lumbia University.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Shakspere's  King  Henry  V. 

Edited  by  George  C.  D.  Odell,  Professor  of  English   in 
Columbia  University.     $0.25.      [For  Reading.] 
Shakspere's  The  Merchant  of  Venice. 

Edited  by  Francis  B.  Gummere,  Professor  of  English  in 
Haverford   College.     $0.25.      [  I'or  Reading.] 
Shakspere's  Twelfth  Night. 

Edited  by  J.  B.  Henneman,  Ph.D.,  late  Professor  of  English, 
University  of  the  South.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Stevenson's  Treasure  Island. 

Edited  by  Clayton  Hamilton,  Extension  Lecturer  in  Eng- 
lish, Columbia   University.     $0.25.      [For  Reading.] 
Tennyson's  Gareth  and  Lynette,   Lancelot  and  Elaine,  The 
Passing  of  Arthur. 

Edited    by    Sophie    C.    Hart,    Professor    of    Rhetoric    in 
Welleslcy  College.     $0.25.      [For   Reading.] 
The  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers. 

Edited  by  D.  O.  S.  Lowell,  Head-master  of  the  Roxbury 
Latin  School,  Boston,  Mass.     $0.25.     [For  Reading.] 
Thoreau's  Walden. 

Edited    by    Raymond    M.    Alden,    Professor    of    English, 
University  of  Illinois.     $0.25.      [For   Reading.] 
Webster's  First  Bunker  Hill  Oration  and  Washington's  Fare- 
well Address. 

Edited  In*  Fred  Newton  Scott,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  in 
the    University    of   Michigan.     $0.25.      [For   Study.] 


Carlyle's  Heroes,  Hero-Worship,  and  the  Heroic  in  History. 

Edited    by    Henry    David    Gray,    Assistant    Professor    of 
English,   Leland   Stanford   Jr.   University.     $0.25. 
Cooper's  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans. 

Edited   l)y   Charles   1^".    Richardson,   Professor  of   English 
in   Dartmouth   College.     $0.40. 
Defoe's  History  of  the  Plague  in  London. 

Edited  by  (ieorge  R.  Carpenter,  late  Professor  of  Rhetoric 
and    English    Composition   in    Columbia    University.     $o.0o. 


Longmans    English   Classics 


De  Quincey's  Flight  of  a  Tartar  Tribe. 

Edited  by  Charles  Sears  Baldwin,  Professor  of  Rhetoric 
in  Columbia  University.     $0.40. 
De  Quincey's  Joan  of  Arc  and  The  English  Mail  Coach. 
Edited  by  Charles  Sears  Baldwin,  Professor  of  Rhetoric 
in   Columbia  University.     $0.25. 
Dryden's  Palamon  and  Arcite. 

Edited  by  William  Tenney  Brewster,  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish in  Columbia  University.    $0.40. 
Irving's  Life  of  Goldsmith. 

Edited  by  Lewis  B.  Semple,  Instructor  in  English,  Bush- 
wick  High  School,  Brookh'n,  New  York.     $0.25. 
Irving's  Tales  of  a  Traveller. 

With  an  Introduction  by  Brander  Matthews,  Professor  of 
Dramatic  Literature  in  Columbia  University,  and  Explana- 
tory Notes  by  Professor  George  R.   Carpenter.     $0.40. 
Macaulay's  Essay  on  Milton. 

Edited  by  James  Greenleaf  Croswell,  Head-master  of  the 
Brearley    School,  New  York.     $0.40. 
Macaulay's  Essays  on  Milton  and  Addison. 

Edited  by  James  Greenleaf  Croswell,  Head-master  of  the 
Brearley  School,  New  York.     $0.40. 
Macaulay's  Johnson  and  Addison. 

1.  Life    of     Samuel    Johnson,    edited     by    Huber     Gray 
Buehler,  Hotchkiss  School. 

2.  Addison,    edited    by    James    Greenleaf   Croswell,  Brear- 
ley School.     $0.40. 

Milton's  Paradise  Lost.     Books  I.  and  II. 

Edited   by   Edward    Everett    Hale,  Jr.,   Professor   of   the 
English  Language  and   Literature  in   Union   College.  $0.40. 
Pope's  Homer's  Iliad.     Books  I.,  VI.,  XXII.  and  XXIV. 
Edited  by  William   H.   Maxwell,   Superintendent  of   New 
York  City  Schools;  and  Percival  Chubb,  formerly  Director 
of  English,   Ethical   Culture   School,   New   York.     $0.40. 
Ruskin's  Sesame  and  Lilies. 

Edited  by  Gertrude  Buck,  Associate  Professor  of  English 
in  Vassar  College.     $0.25. 
Scott's  Marmion. 

Edited   by    Robert   Morss   Lovett,    Professor   of   English    in 
the  Universitv  of  Chicago.    $0.40. 
Scott's  Woodstock. 

Edited  by  Bliss  Perry,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in 
Harvard  University.     $0.40. 
Southey's  Life  of  Nelson. 

Edited  bv  Edwin  L.  Miller,  Head  of  the  English  Depart- 
ment,  Central    High   School.   Detroit,    Mich.     $0.40. 
Spenser's  The  Faerie  Queene.      (Selections.) 

Edited  by  John  Erskine,  Professor  of  English  in  Colum- 
bia University.     $0.25. 
Tennyson's  The  Princess. 

Edited   by   G.   E.    W'oodherry.   formerly    Professor   of   Com- 
parative Literature,  Columbia  University.    $0.25. 


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